Learning on the Field: L2 Turkish Vowel Production by L1 American English-Speaking NGOs in Turkey

Abstract

This study adopts the Speech Learning Model to investigate the first language (L1) influence as well as the effects of the length of residence and second language (L2) exposure on American English-speaking learners of Turkish in their productions of Turkish unrounded–rounded vowel pairs, with a particular focus on the vowel categories “new” to American English speakers (/y/, /œ/, and /ɯ/). L1 (English) and L2 (Turkish) speech samples were collected from 18 non-governmental organisation (NGO) workers. L2 experience was defined by whether the worker lived in an urban or regional environment in Turkey. Participants’ audio productions of the word list in L1 and L2 were segmented and annotated for succeeding acoustic analyses. The results show an interesting front–back variability in the realisations of the three vowels, including further back variants of the front vowels (/y/, /œ/) and more forward variants of the /ɯ/ vowel, with a substantial degree of interspeaker variability. While the analysis revealed no significant results for the length of residence, language experience was found to have a significant effect on the production of /y/ (F2) and /ɯ/ (F1/F2). This study forms a first step into the research of adult L2 acquisition in Turkish with a focus on L2 in the naturalistic workplace environment, rather than instructed settings. The findings of this study will contribute to the development of teaching materials for NGO workers learning Turkish as their L2.