An Investigation into the Perception and Production of English Speech Sounds by Cantonese ESL Learners in Hong Kong

The importance of a second language learner's L2 perceptual abilities on his/her production of L2 speech sounds has received increasing attention in the second language acquisition (SLA) literature, yet there has been a lack of research into the interaction between Cantonese ESL learners' L2 perceptual abilities and their production abilities.This study aims to investigate the perception and production of English speech sounds by Cantonese ESL learners in Hong Kong in an attempt to explore the extent to which their L2 perceptual abilities will affect their production of English speech sounds. The claims of two influential speech perception models, the Speech Learning Model (SLM) and the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), will also be examined. Various English segments that have been found to be difficult for Cantonese ESL learners, including different vowels and consonants, will be selected for experimentation. A total of forty Cantonese ESL learners in Hong Kong will be invited to participate in the research study. They will be asked to take part in a series of speech perception and speech production tasks.