Influence of Phonetic Context on L1 Negative Transfer in Phonology

Negative transfer in phonology is a common occurrence in acquiring a second language. However, the alignment of difficulties between the native language (L1) and the target language (L2), as well as the factors influencing this transfer, remain unclear. By employing the negative transfer of Chinese /n/-/l/ confusion to Japanese /n/-/r/ identification as the case, the study examined the perceptual performance of Chinese speakers learning Japanese as a foreign language in different phonetic contexts (monosyllable, fast sentence, and slow sentence) through auditory perception task. The findings revealed that negative transfer was most prominent in fast-sentence contexts but diminished in slow-sentence and monosyllable contexts. This observation may be attributed to the acoustic similarities between the Chinese /l/ and Japanese /r/, as well as the increased cognitive demands associated with processing fast sentences. Furthermore, participants demonstrated quicker identification of similar Japanese phonemes compared to confusable Chinese phonemes in monosyllabic contexts. The reduced cognitive load in monosyllabic settings allowed participants to allocate more cognitive resources to distinguishing between phonemes, while the more distinct acoustic features of the Japanese /r/ in contrast to the Chinese /l/ likely contributed to this enhanced performance. Our results shed light on the mechanism of phonetic context impacting negative transfer and indicate the importance of tailored instruction utilizing specific contextual resources.