Handling L2 Input in Phonological STM: The Effect of Non‐L1 Phonetic Segments and Non‐L1 Phonotactics on Nonword Repetition

Abstract

This article reports on an experiment comparing the effects of three discrete types of deviance from native language (L1) phonetics and phonology on verbal short‐term memory performance. A nonword repetition task was used to measure the recall of four stimulus types: (a) high‐probability L1‐sounding nonwords, (b) low‐probability L1‐sounding nonwords, (c) nonwords containing illegal L1 phoneme sequences, and (d) nonwords containing non‐L1 sound segments. Special response assessment criteria were used in order to control for potential production effects such as an accent. Results reveal a major detrimental effect caused by the presence of unfamiliar sound segments in the input. The decrement produced by phonological deviances was only significant in the case of long (six‐syllable) stimuli. A model of LTM‐STM interaction is proposed in which the supporting effect of phonetic knowledge is restricted to perceptual analysis and the role of phonological/phonotactic knowledge is confined to reconstructive processes.