Nativelikeness in production and perception: Implications for pedagogy

Abstract

Linguistics has seen a heated discussion of whether ultimate attainment in second language speakers is possible and what it means to be nativelike. To help us understand the relationship between objective measures of production and subjective measures of perception, the data from the same speakers are analyzed from both angles. Here I discuss one non-native English speaker’s nativelikeness in production and perception and the correspondences between the two with a focus on vowels. I highlight the speaker’s nativelike production of some but not all vowels, which nevertheless results in a perceived nativelikeness. I conclude with a discussion of feature salience. Show more