The perception of phonemic contrasts in a non-native dialect

Abstract

This study examined the impact on speech processing of regional phonetic/phonological variation in the listener’s native language. The perception of the /e/-/ε/ and /o/-/ɔ/ contrasts, produced by standard but not southern French native speakers, was investigated in these two populations. A repetition priming experiment showed that the latter but not the former perceived words such as /epe/ and /epε/ as homophones. In contrast, both groups perceived the two words of /o/-/ɔ/ minimal pairs (/pom/-/pɔm/) as being distinct. Thus, standard-French words can be perceived differently depending on the listener’s regional accent.