Diphthongization of the vowel /e:/ into the diphthong [ei] is a common phenomenon in Dutch and can be transferred to an L2; we found in our bachelor thesis that, although the French vowel /e/...Show moreDiphthongization of the vowel /e:/ into the diphthong [ei] is a common phenomenon in Dutch and can be transferred to an L2; we found in our bachelor thesis that, although the French vowel /e/ should not be diphthongized, Dutch learners of French tend to do this. Interestingly, they do this more when the vowel /e/ occurs in the first syllable of a word. That is why we investigated in the current study if coarticulation with neighboring sounds plays a role in the diphthongization of the French vowel /e/ in Dutch learners of French. Furthermore, we didn't only focus on production, but we also investigated whether Dutch learners of French can perceive the difference between the French monophthong /e/ and the Dutch diphthong [ei] and whether neighboring sounds influence this perception in an AXB task. Finally, we examined whether the perception of the participants was correlated with their production. We found that the neighboring sounds indeed seem to influence both the production and the perception of the diphthongization of the French vowel /e/; when the /e/ was followed by the dental sound /t/, it was significantly more diphthongized than when it was followed by the labial sound /p/. Interestingly, although the /t/ gives rise to more diphthongization in production, the participants perceived the least diphthongs in a /t/ context in the perception task, which could be explained as a compensation effect for coarticulation. It was less clear whether the participants were able to distinguish between the monophthong /e/ and the diphthong [ei] in the perception task. Finally, we didn't find a correlation between the production and perception of the diphthongization of the French vowel /e/ in Dutch learners of French.Show less
