Production of the French High Vowels /i y u/ by English-Speaking Learners and French Native Speakers in a Reading Task in Tandem Language Learning
Résumé
The French vowels /i y u/ are characterized by their focal nature (Schwartz et al., 1997): the first two formants (F1/F2) are grouped for /u/, the second and third (F2/F3) for /y/, and the third and fourth for /i/ (Vaissière 2007). It has been shown (Flege 1987, Levy 2009) that English-speaking learners of French encounter difficulties in producing these vowels (/u/ with a higher F2, not grouped with F1).
These tendencies have been observed mainly in vowels in isolation or in test words in carrier sentences. The goal of this study is to examine these vowels in a French text-reading task (La bise et le soleil) conducted during tandem learning in Paris with 10 pairs of female native speakers of French (NF: aged 17-21) and English (NE: 19-24 years old: 2 from Ireland, 2 from England, 5 from the USA, 1 from Costa Rica; SITAF corpus, Horgues & Scheuer, 2015). NE were recorded twice (before -1.1- and after feedback -1.2- from the tandem partner) during the first tandem session and once 3 months later -2-; NF were recorded once. The first four formants were measured at 25%, 50%, and 75% of the vowel in 5 words containing /u/, 9 words containing /y/, and 8 with /i/; they were statistically compared using ANOVA.
The results show /y/ and /u/ were not clearly distinguished by NE (/u/ produced with a higher F2 than NF, but significantly lower than that of NE’s /y/ in Session 1.1, F=19, p<.0001); the difference was even greater in Session 2. F1/F2 distance of NF’s /u/ was significantly smaller than that of NE (F=16.4, p<.0001), while no significant difference was found between F2/F3 distance of NF’s /y/ and that of NE. The same measurements will be conducted on spontaneous speech of these same speakers in a future study.