Exploring lexical stress processing in L2 English: A comparative eye-tracking study of native English listeners and Japanese listeners

Exploring lexical stress processing in L2 English: A comparative eye-tracking study of native English listeners and Japanese listeners

This study aims to explore how individuals with a native language characterized by a lexical pitch accent approach lexical stress in a stress-timed L2 during spoken word recognition. To this end, native English listeners and Japanese listeners of English participated in two phases of experiment: a three-day training and a subsequent eye-tracking experiment. The eye-tracking results revealed distinct processing patterns. Native English listeners predominantly recognized trochaic words by relying on the initial stressed syllable. In contrast, for iambic words, they utilized both the initial unstressed and the second stressed syllables for recognition. Japanese listeners of English demonstrated a different pattern of processing. They initiated lexical access within the first syllable of trochaic stress patterns and slightly later, still relying on first-syllable information, for iambic words. This finding implies that a single initial syllable is enough for Japanese listeners of English to utilize word stress information during L2 English spoken word recognition unlike native English listeners. The equal efficiency in employing two lexical stress patterns in L2 English suggests that lexical processing strategies transferred from the L2 listeners' native language could facilitate word recognition in the target language. While this study underscores the advantages of L1 prosodic structures in L2 English word recognition, it does not imply that Japanese listeners of English process English word stress in the same manner as native English listeners do during overall English word recognition.