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Foreign language pronunciation skills and musical aptitude: A study of

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 Learning and Individual Differences 20 (2010) 56–60

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Learning and Individual Differences

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / l i n d i f

Foreign language pronunciation skills and musical aptitude: A study of Finnish adults
with higher education
Riia Milovanov a,b,c,⁎, Päivi Pietilä a, Mari Tervaniemi c,d, Paulo A.A. Esquef e,f
a
Department of English, 20014 University of Turku, Finland
b
Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Turku, Finland
c
Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
d
Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland and Helsinki Brain Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland
e
Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland
f
LPS-PEE/COPPE Caixa Postal 68504, CEP 21941-972 Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The main aim of this study was to examine second language production and discrimination skills in the light
Received 22 March 2009 of musical aptitude. Our study was conducted in university settings in south-western Finland. English was
Received in revised form 4 October 2009 used as a model for the second language due to its popularity among young adults. There were three types of
Accepted 11 November 2009
tests used in this study: a pronunciation test, a phonemic listening discrimination task, and the Seashore test
as an index of the musical aptitude. All the participants performed equally well in the phonemic listening
Keywords:
discrimination task. However, the participants with higher musical aptitude were able to pronounce English
Auditory perception
Musical aptitude
better than the participants with less musical aptitude. The results, therefore, imply that musical and
Pronunciation skills linguistic skills are interconnected.
Seashore test © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction motivation, prevail (Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken, & Schils,

Over the recent decades, the concept of communicative compe-
tence has gained greater importance in foreign language studies
across Europe. The objects and instructions concerning teaching
foreign languages imply, for example, the identification of different
text types and forms and becoming familiar with new cultural
environments. The students should also systematically exercise their
oral proficiency and are required to have a certain phonological
competence in the target language. This involves a knowledge of, and
skill in, the perception and production of the sound-units (phonemes)
of the target language. The musical components of speech, such as
sentence stress and intonation, word tones and word stress should
also be mastered (The Council of Europe, 2001).
According to Long (1990, 1993) and Scovel (1988), the acquisition
of native-like pronunciation is impossible if the learner has not been
exposed to the target language as a child. Nevertheless, there is a
great deal of disagreement about the exact nature of the role of age.
It is claimed that native-speaker proficiency in second language
proficiency is possible even when learners have not been exposed to
the target language before puberty, provided that certain learner
characteristics, such as neurocognitive flexibility and very high
⁎ Corresponding author. Department of English, 20014 University of Turku, Finland.
Tel.: + 358 2 333 6692; fax: + 358 2 333 5630.
E-mail address: riia.milovanov@utu.fi (R. Milovanov).
1997). However, foreign accents have been found to be present even
in the speech of individuals who have started learning their second
language in childhood (Flege, Munro, & MacKay, 1995).
In addition to age, a number of other individual factors have been
claimed to influence the learning of second language pronunciation,
such as personality (i.e., anxiety and extroversion), learning strate-
gies, memory, prior experience (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1992;
Dörnyei, 2005), and the similarity of the phonemic systems between
the mother tongue and the target language (Wiik, 1965; Flege, 1988;
Lintunen, 2004). The role of musical aptitude or musical training
has recently gained greater attention as a contributing factor in the
individual differences in language learning in general. For instance,
musical training seems to relate to phonological processing ability
in preschool children (Anvari, Trainor, Woodside, & Levy, 2002).
The positive impact of musical aptitude and musical training on
linguistic skills has been reported by Besson and Schön (2001) and
Tallal and Gaab (2006). Moreover, a study by Slevc and Miyake (2006)
indicated a strong correlation between musical aptitude and second
language listening discrimination and production skills among native
Japanese who were immersed in English after the age of 11. Most
recently, Milovanov, Huotilainen, Välimäki, Esquef, and Tervaniemi
(2008) investigated the relationship between musical aptitude and
second language pronunciation and phonemic discrimination skills.
20 children with advanced English pronunciation skills had better
musical skills as measured by the Seashore musicality test than

1041-6080/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2009.11.003
 R. Milovanov et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 20 (2010) 56–60 57

20 children with less accurate English pronunciation skills. Also, it has and had received, on average, approximately nine years of training in
been shown that musicians detect prosodically congruous and various instruments in the past. However, none of the choir members
incongruous foreign language sentence—final words faster and more had recently played an instrument on a regular basis due to limited
accurately than non-musicians (Marques, Moreno, Castro, & Besson, amounts of spare time. The choir members were not routinely singing
2007). English songs.
The main aim of this study was to further investigate the apparent
interaction between musical aptitude and foreign language pronun- 2.2. Tests
ciation skills. Moreover, the ability to discern phonemic minimal pair
contrasts was investigated. Our participants were Finnish young 2.2.1. Musical aptitude test
adults with varying degrees of musical aptitude. Our hypothesis was The general musical aptitude of the participants was quantified by
that participants with higher general musical aptitude would have using the Seashore Musical aptitude test (Seashore, Lewis, & Saetveit,
better phonemic production and discrimination skills compared to 1960a,b, 2003), which is a standardized test based on the assumption
participants with less musical aptitude. that musicality can be divided into different separate talents (pitch,
duration, timbre, rhythm, loudness and tonal memory efficacy).
2. Experimental procedure
2.2.2. Pronunciation test
2.1. Participants Six challenging English phonemes for Finns were chosen for the
production test. /|/(measure), /M:/(bird), /ð/(either), /θ/(three), /tP/
46 right-handed adults (Oldfield, 1971), all native Finnish speakers (catch) and /d|/(George) appear in English but not in Finnish (Morris-
with normal hearing abilities and no attentional or neurological Wilson, 2004). As Flege (1988) puts it, when the target language
disorders, participated in this study. The test groups consisted of non- phoneme does not belong to the mother tongue phonemic system,
musical university students (N = 16, 14 females, mean age 25, musical difficulties are likely to occur with both phonemic listening discrimi-
aptitude score = 38%), musical choir members with university student nation and production, especially in the beginning. However, with
status or college level education (N = 15, 15 females, mean age 26, practice, the difficulties are most likely to be overcome.
musical aptitude score = 78%), and English philology students The participants were asked to imitate 30 words after an R. P.
(N = 15, 12 females, mean age 23, musical aptitude score = 69%), (Received Pronunciation; Crystal, 1985) model containing the prob-
who had received formal training in English phonetics (Table 1). The lematic phonemes onto a mini disc voice recorder. There were always
cognitive capacity of the participants was tested with the WAIS-R. five words containing the problematic phoneme under investigation;
One-way ANOVA confirmed that there were no significant group for instance, the words television, measure, Asia, garage, and treasure
differences between any of the test groups in their general intelligence contained the sibilant /|/. The RP models were only presented orally,
(p N 0.05). no written forms of the words under investigation were shown to the
All the participants had had an equal amount of English training in participants. The pronunciation skills of the single phonemes were
elementary and upper secondary school, starting at the age of nine. thereafter judged either correct or incorrect by three blind evaluators,
Only the English philology test group had received formal training in whose opinions on the participants' pronunciation skills were
English after upper secondary school, both by taking classes in a concurrent (Rs = 0.88–0.99, all p-values b 0.001).
Finnish university and by studying or working in an English-speaking
country. The choir members and non-musical university students had 2.2.3. The minimal pair task: phonemic discrimination
not formally studied English pronunciation or the English language The participants were asked to distinguish 30 distinctive phonemic
after finishing upper secondary school and had not stayed in an contrasts between /|/–/s/, /M:/–/ö/, /ð/–/d/, /θ/–/f/, /tP/–/P/, and /d|/–/tP/.
English-speaking country as a tourist for more than 2 weeks at a time. All 30 items included 3 words: one different, two of the same [a) jeep–
The musical background of the participants was also examined: jeep–cheap and b) they–day–they]. The participants had a form with the
only two participants of the English philology group practiced music numbers a) 1 2 3 and b) 1 2 3 corresponding to all 30 items on the tape.
actively and regularly either by singing or playing an instrument. The participants had to circle the number representing the word they
Seven English philology students reported never having shown an heard as different, in case a) it is sound number 3 (cheap), and in case b)
interest in practicing music in any form at all, while six participants it is sound number 2 (day). The whole test was recorded on tape by a
had played an instrument for a couple of years in their early teenage native speaker of English.
years but ceased playing it due to a lack of interest or skill. The non-
musical adults had never shown any interest in practicing music in 2.3. Procedure
any form. All the choir members practiced singing on a weekly basis,
All the tests were performed in the laboratories of the Centre for
Cognitive Neuroscience (University of Turku). The experiments were
Table 1 in accordance with the Helsinki declaration. Before each test started,
Means and SEMs from all the subtests.
the participants were given instructions in Finnish. Three examples
English philology Choir members Non-musical of the listening discrimination exercises were presented to each of
students students the participants to ensure that misunderstandings would not occur
Test Mean Std. Error Mean Std. Error Mean Std. Error and to provide evidence that the instructions had been fully
understood. In addition, the participants were asked to practice
Seashore pitch 64.8 7.3 67.3 11.4 47.6 9.5
Seashore duration 68.1 4.8 59.1 7.4 35.8 6.2 with three example words before the production test started. The
Seashore timbre 76.0 5.9 85.9 9.3 58.3 7.7 participants were informed that mistakes would not matter and that
Seashore rhythm 61.4 7.5 67.2 11.7 42.2 9.8 they could continue with the test even if they were not sure of the
Seashore loudness 80.3 6.8 72.4 10.6 45.7 8.9
right answers.
Seashore tonal memory 72.7 6.2 69.7 9.6 28.4 8.0
accuracy
General musical aptitude 70.6 3.3 70.3 5.1 43.0 4.3 3. Data analysis
Pronunciation mistakes 14.4 4.1 18.7 6.3 43.3 5.3
Listening discrimination 23.5 2.0 27.0 3.1 25.0 2.6 The statistical significances between all the test performances were
mistakes
determined by analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA). Significant
58 R. Milovanov et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 20 (2010) 56–60

effects were further analyzed with Tukey's HSD post-hoc tests for
selected contrasts in order to determine the possible differences
between the test groups. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis of
variance (MANOVA) with ‘years of music training’ as a covariant was
conducted in order to clarify how extracurricular music practicing
might affect the results of the Seashore musical aptitude test, pro-
nunciation and phonemic discrimination tasks.
The correlations between general musical aptitude, pronunciation
skills, and the phonemic and musical listening discrimination tests
were calculated using the Pearson correlation co-efficient, which
was also used when blind raters evaluated the pronunciation skills.
Additionally, partial correlations between general musical aptitude
and pronunciation skills controlling for ‘years of musical training’ and
the test scores for WAIS-R and phonemic discrimination skills were
calculated.

4. Results

4.1. Musical aptitude test

Fig. 2. Percentage of errors (mean and SEM) in the pronunciation test.

Fig. 1 shows the general musical aptitude score and the results for
the different Seashore subtests among the three adult test groups:
English philology students, non-musical university students, and choir comparisons). The non-musical adults had more difficulties in the
members. When comparing the different test groups' general musical duration (p b 0.001), timbre (p b 0.05), loudness (p b 0.001) and tonal
aptitude score, ANOVA indicated a group main effect [F(2,43) = 43.83, memory (p b 0.001) subtests than the English philology students or
p b 0.001]. A post-hoc test indicated that there were no differences in the choir members. The choir members performed better in the
general musical aptitude between English philology students and duration subtest when compared to the English philology students
choir members (p N 0.05). However, both of these groups had a higher (p b 0.05).
general musical aptitude score compared to the non-musical univer-
sity students (p b 0.001). Moreover, a group main effect was shown in
4.2. Pronunciation test
all the Seashore subtests: pitch discrimination ability [F(2,43) = 4.01,
p b 0.05], timbre [F(2,43) = 7.90, p b 0.001], sense of rhythm [F(2,43) =
A group main effect was found when examining the general
26.00, p b 0.05], sense of tonality [F(2,43) = 26.00, p b 0.001], duration
pronunciation skills of the participants [F(2,43) = 21.39, p b 0.001].
[F(2,43) = 36.68, p b 0.001] and loudness [F(2,43) = 10.59, p b 0.001].
The performance of the English philology students and the choir
The choir members were clearly better at discriminating pitch and
members did not differ in the production task (p N 0.05). As seen in
rhythmic patterns (p b 0.05 for both subtests) when compared to the
Fig. 2, the non-musical university students demonstrated greater
non-musical university students. The English philology students'
difficulties in English pronunciation than the English philology
sense of pitch and rhythm did not significantly differ from the non-
students or the choir members (p b 0.001) in both comparisons.
musical participants' nor the choir members' results (p b 0.05 for both

4.3. The minimal pair task: phonemic discrimination

In the phonemic discrimination task, the performance of the

groups did not differ from each other (p N 0.05) (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 1. Percentage of correct reports (mean and SEM) from the Seashore musical
aptitude tests: general musical aptitude, pitch, time, timbre, rhythm, loudness and tonal Fig. 3. Percentage of errors (mean and SEM) from the phonemic minimal pair
memory. discrimination task.
 R. Milovanov et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 20 (2010) 56–60
4.4. Extracurricular music training
When ‘years of extracurricular music training’ was used as a
covariant in MANOVA, no group main effect was found (p N 0.05).
Extracurricular music practicing seemed to have a positive effect only
on performance in the Seashore duration subtest (p b 0.001).
4.5. Correlation analysis
A correlation was found between general musical aptitude
(as indicated by the Seashore test) and pronunciation skills (as
determined by the pronunciation errors) (r = − 0.641, p b 0.001). In
other words, the greater the level of general musical aptitude the
participant possessed, the better his or her foreign language pronun-
ciation skills were. Interestingly, the phonemic discrimination ability
was independent from general musical aptitude and pronunciation
skills. Partial correlations (which controlled for WAIS scores, for
musical training, and for receptive phonology scores) also indicated a
strong link between musical aptitude and second language pronun-
ciation skills (p b 0.001).
5. Discussion
In this study, the pronunciation skills of Finnish young adults with
higher education were investigated concerning words containing six
different problematic English phonemes. Moreover, the participants
took part in a phonemic minimal pair discrimination task. Of specific
interest here was determining whether general musical aptitude and
extracurricular music training positively affect foreign language
pronunciation and discrimination skills. Musical aptitude was
measured by the Seashore test. The results of this study indicate a
strong correlation between musical aptitude and English pronuncia-
tion skills, independent of the phonemic listening discrimination
skills and general intelligence. Extracurricular music practice posi-
tively affected only the Seashore duration test results. However, since
phoneme quantity (duration) carries semantic information in a
quantity language such as Finnish in terms of word comprehension
(Milovanov et al., 2009), we cannot rule out a profound training effect
as a second cause for the Seashore duration test results.
The non-musical university students were the only participants
who faced notable difficulties in the English pronunciation task. The
choir members and English philology students' general musical
aptitude did not differ significantly. Detecting the minimal pairs
seemed to be slightly more problematic than the pronunciation of
individual words (phonemes); however, no statistical significance
was found between the groups. This can be explained, for example,
by the relatively small acoustic differences between the minimal
pairs /θ/–/f/, /tP/–/P/ and /d|/–/tP/ (Forrest, Weismer, Milenkovic, &
Dougall, 1998; Jongman, Wayland, & Wong, 2000). One could also
speculate that during the time our participants went to school,
focusing the learners' attention on subtle differences between
phonemes was not part of the teaching strategies and instead
pronunciation was more emphasized. However, one cannot say that
the phonemic discrimination skills of the participants were poor.
Moreover, the listening discrimination skills did not differ between the
three test groups. Perhaps the 10 years of English lessons at school or
implicit acquaintance in English phonology, gained through music and
media exposure, have taught all the participants to distinguish
phonemic contrasts—although with insufficient transfer effects to
their pronunciation skills for all of them. One could also speculate on
the role that the 9 years of music lessons at school may have had in
learning their phonemic discrimination skills. In Finland, music lessons
are an obligatory part of each elementary and high school's curriculum
for the first nine years. Mostly, the music lessons imply singing, but
different musical instruments and genres and the very basic elements
of music theory, such as notes and rhythmic patterns, are also taught.
59
As indicated by Moreno et al. (2009), even a relatively short music
training period of six months can facilitate pitch discrimination in
native language speech.
The role of the age at which the participants had been first exposed
to the English language does not explain the superior English
pronunciation that the choir members and English philology students
were found to have: in the present study, all the participants had
started actively learning English as a second language at the age of 9,
in other words, prior to puberty. However, even the starting age of
acquisition is observed to significantly correlate negatively with
attained second language proficiency at the end state (Birdsong, 2005,
2006; De Keyser & Larson-Hall, 2005); the role of age of immersion in
a foreign language may be more important than the age of starting
classroom instruction (Munoz, 2008).
The amount of practice of English after finishing upper elementary
school cannot be considered a crucial factor in improving pronunci-
ation skills, since the unmusical university students and choir
members did not continue their English studies, unlike the English
philology students. These were the only participants with constant
practice and input of the second language and also formal training
regarding English phonetics. Still, without actively practicing English
phonemes in a classroom situation and instead only by performing
music, the choir members were able to pronounce English as well as
the English philology students. Therefore, it is possible that by singing
or playing a musical instrument one may simultaneously train
processes that underlie linguistic analyzing since music and language
seem to share a similar architecture.
Due to practical constraints, the tests used in the present study
were relatively quick to perform; in fact, they were designed to meet
the needs for also testing 9–10 year old children. This made it feasible
to include only a rather limited set of phonemes in both the
pronunciation and discrimination tests. This naturally could weaken
the generalizability of the results. On the other hand, no signs of
impatience or frustration were seen with the participants performing
the tests, no one discontinued the listening discrimination tasks or
the reading onto a minidisc recorder before the end of the test was
reached. Therefore, the data obtained can be regarded as trustworthy
evidence of the participants' skills. Personality factors were not
examined here, but it is highly unlikely that the non-musical group
consisted only of introverts having problems producing rather simple
English words. Therefore, the role of musical aptitude seems to occupy
an important position here in explaining the individual differences in
varying phonemic production skills.
Taken together, the following conclusion can be drawn from the
present results: that the greater the general musical aptitude the
participant indicated in the musicality testing, the better the results
obtained were in the English pronunciation test. Thus, the present
results suggest that musical aptitude and foreign language skills, at
least in terms of pronunciation, are interconnected. For further study,
examination is suggested of participants with various degrees of musical
aptitude and musical background when producing phonemes from an
unfamiliar language. The prosodic features of speech should also be
taken into consideration due to their importance and connection to
musical features. The participants' performance regarding measures
of general phonemic awareness (not specific to any language), and
language skills, other than phonological, could also be further
investigated. One could also speculate regarding whether the superior
performance in musical and linguistic tasks draws upon the same
source, namely an improved auditory pattern recognition mechanism.
To clarify this question, testing of more basic auditory processing skills
should also be carried out in the future.
Acknowledgements
The present research was financially supported by the Pythagoras
Graduate School (Ministry of Education, Helsinki, Finland). Thanks to
60 R. Milovanov et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 20 (2010) 56–60
Ms. Milla Köynnös, B.A. and Ms. Pauliina Savolainen, B.A. for their
assistance in the data collection and Mr. Damon Tringham for reading
the material used in the production test and the phonemic discrim-
ination task onto a tape.
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