Production and Perception of English Tense/lax Vowel Contrasts by Korean EFL Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean EFL (KE) learners production and perception of English tense/lax vowel contrasts. This study not only examines the acoustic properties of KE learners production of English tense/lax vowels but it also looks into the KE learners perception as to whether or not they discriminate English tense/lax vowel contrasts in a Categorical Discrimination Test (CDT). Four KE learners (experimental group) and three native speakers of English (control group) participated in the study. In Production test, the KE learners were asked to read aloud consonant-vowelconsonant English words in a carrier phrase. In Perception test, the KE learners participated in a CDT. The results suggest that English tense/lax vowel contrasts prove to be problematic for KE learners in both production and perception. They experienced difficulty in accurately producing the contrasts in terms of vowel quality and duration. In addition, the results of the perception test suggest that English tense/lax contrasts are difficult for KE learners to discriminate because both members of each contrast tend to be uncategorizable and identified as instances of a single Korean vowel.