The Effect of Formal Instruction on Acquisition of the English /r/ and /l/ by Korean Speakers

Abstract

This study assesses the role of formal instruction in the acquisition of the English /r/ and /l/ by native Korean (NK) speakers. Following the proposal by Flege (1981, 1987, 1991, 1992) that many L2 production errors have a perceptual basis, a theoretical instruction to explain the position-sensitive subtle phonetic differences between English and Korean liquids was given to NK speakers and the accuracy of their production of English liquids was evaluated by native English speakers. The results based on 18 NK speakers show that 1) a very short perceptual training, not naturalistic learning, was effective in the improvement of late learners' L2 pronunciation and its effect was maintained for a rather short-term period; but 2) the results varied according to the phonological position each segment occurred, and the perceptual training conducted in this study did not override prior L1 phonological learning. Based on the results of this study, the L2 theories and theories of perception and production were revisited.