AARDVARC Workshop May 2013

AARDVARC - Automatically Annotated Repository of Digital Audio and Video Resources Community

NSF sponsored workshops at ILIT/EMU and CUNY.

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Endangered languages is up

The Endangered Languages site has been launched today:

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/

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Talk: M. Cavar "On the influence of L1 on the L2 perception: The case of tenseness contrast in American vowels"

Date: April 13th, 2012
Time: 1:30 PM
Location: Cooper Building, Suite 104, EMU, 2000 Huron River Drive, Ypsilanti

Directions: Take Washtenaw heading east from Ann Arbor toward Ypsilanti. Go past Hwy 23, turn left on Golfside, then turn right on Huron River Drive. The Cooper Building will be on the left, across from Rynearson Stadium, and there is free parking right out front. If you reach Superior St. you have gone too far.

Title: On the influence of L1 on the L2 perception: The case of tenseness contrast in American vowels
Author:
Malgorzata E. Cavar

Abstract:
One obvious difficulty in foreign language learning is the production of foreign sounds. What is less obvious is the fact that the perception of foreign categories by L2 learners differs from that of the native speakers and in itself might be and often is a hurdle in the acquisition of the phonetic/phonological system of the foreign language. In this talk, I will present the results of a series of experiments pertaining to the perception of the English vocalic contrast in high vowels by learners with different L1 backgrounds. The goal of this and similar studies is to determine how perceptual strategies of L2 learners differ from those of English native speakers and what these differences depend on. In the long run, the aim is to predict “customized” areas of difficulty for learners with different backgrounds and to help develop curricula and teaching aids that would actually respond to learners’ needs.
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