Korean vowel identification by English and Mandarin listeners: Effects of L1-L2 vowel inventory size and acoustic relationship

This paper examined how English and Mandarin listeners identify Korean vowels, focusing on native (L1) vowel inventory size and acoustic similarity between native and second language (L2) vowels. It was found that English listeners (with a larger vowel inventory) have higher identification accuracy scores for Korean vowels than Mandarin listeners (with a small vowel inventory), supporting the predictive role of vowel inventory size in non-native perception. To predict perceptual difficulties for L2 listeners, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was undertaken. The LDA model predicted that English listeners will have the most perceptual difficulties with Korean vowels [o, u], while Mandarin listeners will have the most perceptual difficulties with [ɨ, ʌ, o, u]. The results of a Korean vowel identification task revealed that both groups showed the same perceptual difficulty order: ɨ > ʌ > o > u, indicating that acoustic similarity between L1 and L2 vowels partially predicts vowel perceptual difficulty for L2 listeners