The linguistic perception of SIMILAR L2 sounds

In this article, I discuss a linguistic model for explaining native and second-language (L2) sound perception. In §2, I discuss the Linguistic Perception (LP) model for general sound perception and L1 acquisition. In §3, I illustrate the L2 Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model with the learning of L2 SIMILAR sounds, which are L2 sounds that are phonologically equivalent but yet phonetically different from the sounds in the learner's first language (L1) that are acoustically most similar. In this introductory section, I argue why we need a linguistic model for sound perception and discuss the characteristics that such a model should have to adequately describe and explain the phenomenon at hand.