Perception des voyelles françaises [e], [E] et [ə] par des universitaires mexicains
Mexican undergraduate students´ perception of the French vowels [e], [E] and [ə]

Summary/Abstract: The French vowels [e], [E] and [ə] represent difficulty for Mexican students learning French as a foreign language. This is due to two factors: (a) the influence of the sound system of their mother tongue (L1), Spanish, and (b) the proximity of the three vowels in the French acoustic space. In fact, the Spanish acoustic space of the vowel [e] covers the space of the three French vowels [e], [] and [ə]. Moreover, the three French vowels stand in such acoustic proximity that the difference among them is subtle. Does the broad acoustic space covered by the Spanish vowel [e] allow Mexican learners to distinguish the French vowels [] and [ə]? Do the subtle differences among the French vowels cause a perceptual confusion for Mexican learners of French as an FL? A behavioral experiment was performed with undergraduate Mexican students. Two ABX tests involving lists of discrete segments with the minimal structure CV were used in order to observe if the subjects could perceive a difference between the Spanish vowel [e] and the French vowels [] and [ə]. The results show that 16 undergraduate Mexican students got high scores for accurate perception, demonstrating that they indeed perceive the difference between the three French vowels regardless of consonant context.

• Details
• Contents