TITLE:
A Systematic Review: Exploring L2 Vowel Production from Revised Speech Learning Theory Perspective
AUTHORS:
Zhifang Liu
KEYWORDS:
L2 Vowel Production, Transfer Studies, Speech Learning Model, Chinese Accented English, Systematic Review
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.6,
June
29,
2023
ABSTRACT: 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.