Perceiving and identifying vowels in regional accents of English: evidence from Dutch- and Spanish-speaking L2 listeners

This study examines how L2 English listeners perceive and categorize vowels produced in three regional accents of English: Southern British (S.Eng), Northern British (N.Eng), and Australian English (AusE). Specifically, we investigate how L1 speakers of Belgian Dutch and European Spanish classify these vowels in terms of their native vowel categories, and how such perceptual classifications relate to acoustic similarity between L1-L2 vowels and L2 vowel identification accuracy. To quantify cross-language acoustic similarity and predict which L2 vowel contrasts would be perceptually challenging, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) models were trained on Dutch and Spanish vowel data and tested on English vowel data. 40 Dutch-speaking and 40 Spanish-speaking participants then completed a cross-language categorization task and second-language vowel identification task using naturally produced /CVC/-syllables. The results demonstrate that LDA-based acoustic similarity largely predicts cross-language perception, although certain vowel categorization patterns point to differences in acoustic cue-weighting between the LDA models and participants. Compared to those of Spanish listeners, Dutch listeners’ classifications showed greater divergence from the LDA model, likely reflecting the denser vowel inventory of Dutch and the resulting increase in category competition. Moreover, participants’ cross-language vowel categorization responses predicted their L2 vowel identification accuracy. That is, L2 vowels consistently mapped onto a (single) different L1 category with high goodness-of-fit were more likely to be identified correctly. Identification accuracy was highest for S.Eng vowels, aligning with participants’ greater self-reported familiarity with that accent. Together, our findings highlight the complex interplay between cross-language similarity, vowel inventory and accent familiarity in shaping L2 perception.