Previous research has indicated that a person.s language history may affect their speech compensation results during altered auditory feedback. The purpose of this experiment was to determine if the interaction of first language and second language vowels will influence compensatory behavior in Vietnamese and English speakers. The experiment included a group of native Vietnamese talkers who learned English as a second language and a group of English monolinguals. F1 discrimination thresholds and vowel goodness ratings for English /ɪ/ as in "hid" on a continuum towards English /ɛ/ as in "head" were determined. Vowel spaces were collected for both languages and auditory feedback of F1 was manipulated during speech production for English and Vietnamese vowels. Results found an asymmetry in compensation between the negative and positive shifts for each vowel. Group differences in speech production were found when the F1 manipulation was dynamic. However, when the F1 manipulation was stable, English /ɪ/ did not elicit group differences, but English /æ/ did. These results suggest some differences in the auditory feedback systems for the two groups.

Index Terms: auditory feedback, language acquisition, speech production