Interference of L1 Phonological Processes in English Learning

Abstract

The present study examined the impact of L1 phonological processes on English learning by conducting a production experiment on 20 Korean high school students with different levels of English proficiency. In particular, the students’ production of English n-l sequenced words (e.g., only, fan letter, boneless, lonely) and m-l sequenced words (e.g., homeland, home loan, harmless, calmly) was investigated in order to find out the influence of Korean /n/-lateralization (e.g., /non-li/ [nol.li] ‘logic’, /nan-lo/ [nal.lo] ‘stove’) and /l/-nasalization (e.g., /kam-li/ [kam.ni] ‘supervision’, /kɨm-li/ [kɨm.ni] ‘interest rate’) on the acquisition of the English sound system. Another point of consideration in the present study was the effect of morphological information such as word and suffix types on the production of English words (e.g., single words vs. compound words vs. derived words). The overall results showed that the impact of L1 phonological processes was evident, but that the degree of impact varied with the nature of phonological processes. More specifically, the students had more production difficulty with the n-l sequenced words than with the m-l sequenced words irrespective of their English proficiency, which shows that the effect of Korean lateralization is more persistent than that of Korean nasalization. Yet, the high proficiency-level students overall outperformed the low proficiency-level students. Moreover, the results indicated that the students’ performance was affected by target words’ morphological information such as word and suffix types, as the students’ production of compound words was better than that of single words, which was in turn better than that of derived words across English n-l sequenced and m-l sequenced words. Theoretical and pedagogical implications for L2 sound acquisition were drawn, along with directions for future research.