Korean EFL Learners’ Identification of English Consonant Contrasts in Word-final Position

Abstract

The study investigated whether Korean EFL learners’ identification of English consonant contrasts in word-final position was affected by the types of contrasting consonants and by vowel contexts. The study also examined whether Korean EFL learners’ identification accuracy was correlated with their English listening comprehension test scores. To that end, 123 Korean high school students completed an English consonant identification task with English nonce words. The nonce word stimuli consisted of 8 types of English consonant minimal pairs (/p-f/, /b-v/, /t-ɵ/, /d-ð/, /s-ʧ/, /z-ʤ/, /s-ɵ/, /z-ð/) combined with one of three vowels (/i, a, u/). The results showed that both the types of contrasting consonants and vowel contexts had a great impact on Korean high school students’ identification of English consonant contrasts in word-final position. Korean high school students’ ability to identify English consonant contrasts was also correlated with their English listening comprehension test scores. Based on the findings of the study, some implications for the teaching and learning of English consonant contrasts for Korean EFL learners were drawn.