The relationship between perception and production of illusory vowels in a second language

Korean learners of English are known to repair consonant clusters, which are not allowed in their native language, with an epenthetic vowel [ɨ]. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether the perception–production link of such an illusory vowel in a second language (L2) is only within and not across processing levels, as proposed in a previous study regarding L2 segments. We assessed the perception and production of English onset clusters by Korean learners and native English speakers at the prelexical (AX discrimination and pseudoword read-aloud tasks) and lexical (lexical decision and picture-naming tasks) levels, using the same participants and stimuli across the tasks. Results showed that accuracy in not producing an epenthetic vowel between the two consonants of onset cluster was not significantly associated with accurate perception of the cluster either within or across processing levels. The results suggest that production and perception accuracy in L2 phonotactics are independent to a certain extent.