Perception & Production of Consonants of English by Pashto Speakers

Abstract

This paper deals with the perception and production of L2 consonants by Pashtoon learners/speakers of English. Phonetic, phonological, perceptual and social factors are considered to account for the problems that adult Pashtoon learners face in the acquisition of new and similar consonants of English. The findings are analysed in the light of predictions made by three popular models of second language acquisition (SLA), namely Feature Model (Brown 1998, 2000), Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best 1995) and Speech Learning Model (Flege 1995), to see which of these models can better explain the acquisition of L2 consonants of English by those learners whose L1 is Pashto.
The findings show that the vowel context and L1 features play a significant role in the acquisition of L2 sounds. Although the findings of this study confirm a correspondence between perception and production of consonants, certain factors influence production and perception differently. The study concludes that although these models of SLA address most of the problems of the learners, none of these models comprehensively encompasses all the factors involved in L2 acquisition. Thus an integrated approach based on the predictions of all the models of SLA is recommended for thoroughly understanding the problems faced by L2 learners.