Author(s)

Zhifang Liu

Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.

Speech learning model aims to explain the variables contributing to the differences in L2 phonetic productions. Most previous studies comparing L2 vowel production with L1 vowel production mostly attribute the differences to the mother tongue inference, which is also proposed by Speech learning model. However, the past transfer studies show a number of discrepant findings even regarding the same L2 vowel production. Therefore, this systematic review collected past studies compared L2 vowel production with L1 vowel production to understand the causes to the discrepant findings. Relevant articles published 2000 onward were searched with key words, such as “L2 accented English”, “vowel space”, “L2 Formants”, “Chinese-accented English”, “comparing Chinese English” in the online database. In the initial search with the key words, 120 articles were found. After two screenings on titles and abstracts, and based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 articles were kept to be reviewed. Another search was conducted by referring to the reference lists of the selected articles. Another 2 articles were added, which is 16 articles totally reviewed in this paper. This review starts with a review on the speech learning model. Then synthesizing and analyzing the collected articles are followed. Pedagogical implications and recommendations for future studies regarding the language transfers studies are discussed.

L2 Vowel Production, Transfer Studies, Speech Learning Model, Chinese Accented English, Systematic Review

Liu, Z. (2023) A Systematic Review: Exploring L2 Vowel Production from Revised Speech Learning Theory Perspective. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 11, 452-463. doi: 10.4236/jss.2023.116029.