Perceptual assimilation of American English vowels by inexperienced Russian listeners

In a perceptual assimilation task, 16 Russian speakers categorized American English (AE) vowels [i(sic), (I, epsilon, ae(sic), a(sic), Lambda, (sic), u(sic)] in /Vp(sic)/disyllables into Russian (RU) response categories and rated their perceived goodness on a 9-point Likert scale. Cross-language discriminant analysis established acoustic similarities to Russian vowels. For all butAE [epsilon], acoustic similarity predicted modal assimilation responses. Russian listeners consistently assimilated AE point vowels to their Russian counterparts, whereas assimilation of the remaining vowels was less consistent. These acoustic and perceptual similarity patterns provide a baseline for future studies of AE vowel discrimination by Russian learners of English. (C) 2010 Acoustical Society of America