The effect of learning context on Mandarin listeners' perception of English vowels

Do developmental patterns in second language speech perception differ depending on whether the learning takes place in a predominantly naturalistic setting (second language acquisition [SLA]) or an instructed setting (foreign language acquisition [FLA])? We addressed this question by testing the predictions of the extended Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM-L2) in both settings. Native adult speakers of Mandarin learning English in the UK (SLA learners; N=15) and in China (FLA learners; N=15) performed an ABX discrimination task on 15 pairs of British English vowels. The vowel pairs were classified into six PAM assimilation categories based on goodness-of-fit ratings between English and Mandarin vowels obtained from Mandarin speakers with little exposure to English (N=15). The order of discrimination accuracy for PAM categories did not differ between the two groups (i.e., SLA and FLA), demonstrating that learning context does not affect the relative difficulty with which adult learners perceive non-native vowels.