Testing the Language Melody Game - An ERP, perception and production study of L2 acquisition of the Swedish word accent – grammar association.

Sammanfattning: Previous research has shown that L1 speakers use Swedish word accents to predict what linguistic material is to follow. This study investigated how L2 learners of Swedish process the word accent – suffix association. Low to intermediate level L2 learners trained this association for two weeks, using the Language Melody Game. Before and after training, participants took part in a pre- and post-test, in which data on production (read speech), perception and ERPs were collected. The perception test consisted of auditory stimuli with valid and invalid accent – suffix combinations, and the participants were asked about the meaning of the stimuli. After training, a pre-activation negativity (PrAN) effect increased, indicating that the participants used the accents as predictors more extensively after training. A LAN was also found for invalid stimuli, indicating that they had acquired the tone-suffix association rule. However, no P600 was found, suggesting that the participants did not reprocess the ungrammaticality, and relied more on the suffix itself. This was also seen in response times in the post-test, where invalidity did not yield longer response times, as it does for L1 speakers. The perception training also had an effect on production of word accents.