Jeudi 26 Mars 2026, 12:00 to 13:00Organisation: Karen De Clercq, Lisa Brunetti et Ira Noveck (LLF)Lieu: LLF – Bât. ODG – 5e étage – Salle du conseil (533)
Beyond linguistic meaning:
Acquiring socio-indexical knowledge in second language phonology
Ellen Simon & Hanna De Haes, Ghent University
Traditionally, research in second language (L2) phonology has focused on the acquisition of linguistic meaning. Current L2 speech learning models aim to predict and explain the development of contrastive L2 sound categories and their phonetic implementation (Escudero, 2005; Best & Tyler, 2007; Bohn & Flege, 2021). However, any stretch of speech conveys not only linguistic, but also social meaning, allowing listeners to infer information about a speaker’s regional and social background (Foulkes & Docherty, 2006). This implies that L2 learners, too, are exposed to socio-indexical features from the very beginning of the acquisition process. This raises the question to what extent L2 learners acquire social information in a second language, and how they may differ from L1 users in their sensitivity to socio-indexical information.
In this talk, we present two experiments on the perception of sociophonetic features in French accents. In Experiment 1, we probe L1 French listeners’ sociophonetic knowledge of a range of French accents by studying their noticing of sociophonetic features in relation to accent recognition and familiarity, using an online noticing task implemented in SLiC software (Montgomery et al. 2025). In Experiment 2, we compare L1 French and L1 Dutch learners of French’ performance on the same task as in Experiment 1, though with different stimuli which will allow us to directly compare feature noticing across accents. We will present the main results on accent identification and feature noticing and discuss how the acquisition of sociophonetic knowledge may be part and parcel of the learning task in second language phonology.
Organisation:
Karen De Clercq, Lisa Brunetti et Ira Noveck (LLF)
Lieu:
LLF – Bât. ODG – 5e étage – Salle du conseil (533)
Beyond linguistic meaning:
Acquiring socio-indexical knowledge in second language phonology
Ellen Simon & Hanna De Haes, Ghent University
Traditionally, research in second language (L2) phonology has focused on the acquisition of linguistic meaning. Current L2 speech learning models aim to predict and explain the development of contrastive L2 sound categories and their phonetic implementation (Escudero, 2005; Best & Tyler, 2007; Bohn & Flege, 2021). However, any stretch of speech conveys not only linguistic, but also social meaning, allowing listeners to infer information about a speaker’s regional and social background (Foulkes & Docherty, 2006). This implies that L2 learners, too, are exposed to socio-indexical features from the very beginning of the acquisition process. This raises the question to what extent L2 learners acquire social information in a second language, and how they may differ from L1 users in their sensitivity to socio-indexical information.
In this talk, we present two experiments on the perception of sociophonetic features in French accents. In Experiment 1, we probe L1 French listeners’ sociophonetic knowledge of a range of French accents by studying their noticing of sociophonetic features in relation to accent recognition and familiarity, using an online noticing task implemented in SLiC software (Montgomery et al. 2025). In Experiment 2, we compare L1 French and L1 Dutch learners of French’ performance on the same task as in Experiment 1, though with different stimuli which will allow us to directly compare feature noticing across accents. We will present the main results on accent identification and feature noticing and discuss how the acquisition of sociophonetic knowledge may be part and parcel of the learning task in second language phonology.
| # | Наименование новости | Тональность | Информативность | Дата публикации |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LingLunch: Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie | 0 | 31.67 | 02-03-2026 |
| 2 | LingLunch: Chang Liu | 0 | 29.22 | 02-03-2026 |
| 3 | LingLunch: Beatrice Pahontu Serafino (Inalco, LLF) & Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin (CNRS-LLF, Université Paris Cité) | 0 | 32.84 | 27-04-2026 |
| 4 | LingLunch: Emma Humphries (Queen's U. Belfast) | 0 | 29.98 | 20-03-2026 |
| 5 | LingLunch Anne Abeillé (LLF/UPC) | 0 | 28.55 | 20-03-2026 |
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| 7 | Medaille de bronze du CNRS pour Karen De Clercq | 0 | 20.02 | 21-04-2026 |
| 8 | ECLLA - LE FESTIVAL DES ACCENTS | 0 | 14.95 | 05-03-2026 |
| 9 | Where communication flows, languages swim freely: developing fieldwork methods for investigating preschool children’s language beliefs | 0 | 7.52 | 02-11-2015 |
| 10 | Many languages, many modalities: Finnish Sign Language signers as learners of English | 0 | 4.49 | 02-11-2015 |