Work

Listeners use speaker gender information in non-native phoneme categorization

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Speaker gender is known to affect phoneme categorization, and this effect is especially well-established in fricative perception: for example, in /s/-/θ/ categorization tasks, more /θ/ responses are given when the sound is paired with a male than female voice, henceforth referred to as speaker effect. However, so far this phenomenon has only been tested in native (L1) listeners. The present study examines how speaker gender is used in phoneme categorization in a second language (L2), specifically when listeners are presented with a non-native phoneme contrast that does not occur in their L1 (/s/-/θ/ for German and Polish learners of English). Learners' categorization results of a continuum from /s/ to /θ/ spliced onto words spoken by a male and a female voice were compared to the results a native British English listener group. No significant difference was found between the L1 and L2 groups in their use of speaker gender information in the categorization task, despite the lack of the phoneme contrast in the learners' native languages. This study hence demonstrates the robustness of the speaker gender effect in phoneme categorization. Moreover, the results suggest that this effect is not language specific as it appears accessible also to non-native listeners.

Source: Laboratory Phonology Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology

DOI: 10.16995/labphon.17209

Authors: Helen Reese, Eva Reinisch

Institution: Austrian Academy of Sciences

Language: English

Topic: Phonetics and Phonology Research

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $551

Funder: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften