BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//events.la.psu.edu//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20201101T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20200308T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:16761-1b0b170c91420dc584d86e94e91c2674@events.la.psu.edu DTSTAMP:20260412T191043Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240329T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240329T103000 SUMMARY:Dr. Matt Carlson DESCRIPTION:“You Can’t Hear a Phoneme: Insights on the Nature of Phoneti c (and Phonological) Category Representations From L2 Speech Learning”\n \nMatthew Carlson\, Ph.D.\n\nAssociate Professor\, Penn State\n\nDepartm ent of Spanish\, Italian\, and Portuguese\n\nMatthew Carlson’s goals in this talk are twofold. The first is quite straightforwardly to remind us that the perception of L2 speech sound categories per se probably contr ibutes little to the difficulties faced by learners in expressing themse lves or understanding others in the L2. For example\, difficulty disting uishing minimal pairs is unlikely to surface outside of laboratory exper iments using isolated words\, either for the L2 listener or for their in terlocutors. Where real impacts do occur\, these seem more likely to ste m from speed of lexical and morphosyntactic processing\, lexical knowled ge\, or social attitudes surrounding accentedness and nativeness.\n\nHis second goal is to shift our focus from the sources of (supposed) diffic ulty onto what L2 users actually learn\, and thereby to seek new insight into the nature of phonetic category structure in general. Here I will focus on L2 speech perception. The logic begins by acknowledging humans’ exquisite sensitivity to acoustic detail\, which persists throughout li fe\, not least in our ability to learn new sociophonetic variation\, rec ognize the speech of specific individuals\, and so forth. Where experien ce with multiple languages shapes learning therefore has little to do wi th sensitivity to detail\, but rather it concerns what listeners do with acoustic detail. He will present a series of perception experiments tha t draw our attention to experience-dependent differences in how listener s represent acoustic detail at various levels of abstraction\, but he wi ll then argue that it is more useful to consider these abstract represen tations not as an inventory of phonetic categories or phonemes\, but as a repertoire of possible paths that processing might take after hearing some speech. Under this view\, phonetic and phonological categories do n ot resemble objects so much as they do crossroads\, which can be reached from multiple directions\, and from which certain other crossroads migh t be accessed.\n\nFor more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/dr-m att-carlson/ X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

“You Can’t Hear a Phoneme: Insights on the Nature of Phonetic (and Phonological) Category Representations From L2 Speech Lea rning”

Matthew Carlson , Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Penn State
Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese

Matthew Carlson’s goals in this talk are twofold. The first is quite straightforwardly to remind us that the perception of L2 speech sound categories per se probably contribute s little to the difficulties faced by learners in expressing themselves or understanding others in the L2. For example, difficulty distinguishin g minimal pairs is unlikely to surface outside of laboratory experiments using isolated words, either for the L2 listener or for their interlocu tors. Where real impacts do occur, these seem more likely to stem from s peed of lexical and morphosyntactic processing, lexical knowledge, or so cial attitudes surrounding accentedness and nativeness.

His second goal is to shift our focus from the sources of (supposed) difficulty on to what L2 users actually learn, and thereby to seek new insight into th e nature of phonetic category structure in general. Here I will focus on L2 speech perception. The logic begins by acknowledging humans’ exquisi te sensitivity to acoustic detail, which persists throughout life, not l east in our ability to learn new sociophonetic variation, recognize the speech of specific individuals, and so forth. Where experience with mult iple languages shapes learning therefore has little to do with sensitivi ty to detail, but rather it concerns what listeners do with acoustic det ail. He will present a series of perception experiments that draw our at tention to experience-dependent differences in how listeners represent a coustic detail at various levels of abstraction, but he will then argue that it is more useful to consider these abstract representations not as an inventory of phonetic categories or phonemes, but as a repertoire of possible paths that processing might take after hearing some speech. Un der this view, phonetic and phonological categories do not resemble obje cts so much as they do crossroads, which can be reached from multiple di rections, and from which certain other crossroads might be accessed.

For more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/dr-matt-carlson/

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