Second language discrimination contrasts by adults speakers with a five vowel system

This study tests the ability of a group of Salento Italian undergraduate students that have been exposed to L2 in a scholastic context to perceive British English second language (L2) vowel phonemes. The aim is to verify if the Perceptual Assimilation Model could be applied to them. In order to test their ability to perceive L2 phonemes, subjects have executed an identification and an oddity discrimination test. The results indicated that the L2 discrimination processes are in line with those predicted by the PAM, supporting the idea that students with a formal L2 background are still naïve listeners to the L2.