Training Finnish and English Speakers to Produce Non-native Vowels

The subject of this thesis was the acquisition of difficult non-native vowels by speakers of two different languages. In order to study the subject, a group of Finnish speakers and another group of American English speakers were recruited and they underwent a short listen-and-repeat training that included as stimuli the semisynthetically created pseudowords /ty:ti/ and /tʉ:ti/. The aim was to study the effect of the training method on the subjects as well as the possible influence of the speakers’ native language on the process of acquisition. The selection of the target vowels /y/ and /ʉ/ was made according to the Speech Learning Model and Perceptual Assimilation Model, both of which predict that second language speech sounds that share similar features with sounds of a person’s native language are most difficult for the person to learn. The vowel /ʉ/ is similar to Finnish vowels as well as to vowels of English, whereas /y/ exists in Finnish but not in English, although it is similar to other English vowels. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that /ʉ/ is a difficult vowel for both groups to learn and /y/ is difficult for English speakers. The effect of training was tested with a pretest-training-posttest protocol in which the stimuli were played alternately and the subjects’ task was to repeat the heard stimuli. The training method was thought to improve the production of non-native sounds by engaging different feedback mechanisms, such as auditory and somatosensory. These, according to Template Theory, modify the production of speech by altering the motor commands from the internal speech system or the feedforward signal which translates the motoric commands into articulatory movements. The subjects’ productions during the test phases were recorded and an acoustic analysis was performed in which the formant values of the target vowels were extracted. Statistical analyses showed a statistically significant difference between groups in the first formant, signaling a possible effect of native motor commands. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference between groups was observed in the standard deviation of the formants in the production of /y/, showing the uniformity of native production. The training had no observable effect, possibly due to the short nature of the training protocol.

Assessing the Role of Vocabulary Breadth and Depth in Reading Comprehension: A Quantitative Study of Finnish EFL Learners

In this MA thesis, Finnish learners of English were studied in order to examine the relationship between second language vocabulary size, vocabulary depth, and reading comprehension. In addition, given the well-established connection between vocabulary size and reading comprehension, the second aim of the study was to see whether assessing vocabulary depth could add another dimension in predicting and explaining reading comprehension proficiency. Two groups were studied: the first group consisted of 39 Finnish upper secondary school students (the TOKA group) whereas the second group consisted of 19 university students of English at the University of Turku (the YLI group). Thus, comparisons were made between the results of a less advanced and a very advanced group of English learners, which was the third aim of the study. The participants in both groups filled in a background information form and took three tests: a multiple-choice reading comprehension test, a multiple-choice vocabulary size test, and a test designed to elicit information on learners’ depth of vocabulary knowledge of certain English words. The data were analysed using statistical methods. The results of the study show that the scores on the three tests were positively correlated in both study groups as well as in the two groups together. However, the correlations were higher in the TOKA group and in the two groups in total than in the YLI group. When examining the variance in reading comprehension test scores explained by vocabulary size and vocabulary depth, the figures of explained variance were again higher in the TOKA group and in the two groups in total than in the YLI group. When it comes to the results of the YLI group, vocabulary depth did not indeed seem to add any explained variance into the explanation of reading comprehension test scores. Based on the results of the study, it seems that vocabulary size and depth have a less significant role in the reading comprehension skills of more advanced learners of English. When looking at the less advanced TOKA group, on the other hand, vocabulary size and depth seem to be clear indicators of reading proficiency. In addition, the test results of the YLI group were clearly more uniform than those of the TOKA group. The variance in the test results of the TOKA group was large.