Lexical accent perception in highly-proficient L2 Japanese learners: The roles of language-specific experience and domain-general resources

Abstract

This article reports empirical findings on the roles of domain-general resources and language-specific experience in the second language (L2) acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch accent. Sixty-one advanced-proficiency L2 Japanese learners from two first languages (L1s), Mandarin Chinese and Korean, identified and categorized Japanese nouns embedded in short sentences in two aurally-presented tasks. Mixed effects models showed that although the tonal-language Chinese group outperformed non-tonal Korean speakers, L2 lexical knowledge, but not overall proficiency or learning experience, predicted performance on both perception tasks regardless of L1, suggesting that long-term knowledge of L2 phonological structure facilitates perception of lexical-level prosody. Domain-general resources, however, played no predictive role in advanced learners’ accent perception. A decision-tree analysis then revealed further divergence in perception accuracy by accent pattern, L1, and task type. Taken together, the results establish a close connection between language learning experience and L2 speech perception at the advanced level, and highlight the complexity inherent in the learning of non-native prosodic categories.