Tongue movement in a second language: the case of Spanish /ei/-/e/ for English learners of Spanish

Abstract

This study examines the amount of tongue movement in the productions of native Spanish speakers and native English learners of Spanish for the Spanish diphthong/monophthong contrast /ei/-/e/. We hypothesized that English learners would use their native English category /eɪ/ for both Spanish vowels. However, results show that against our prediction, for both Spanish vowels, learners produced less tongue movement than was expected if they used their L1 category. Instead, they produced both vowels as the monophthong /e/, effectively neutralizing the contrast in terms of tongue movement.