The effect of tone on Mandarin English learners’ perception and production of English consonant clusters Yizhou Lan 1, Sunyoung Oh 2 1,2
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ylylan2-c@my.cityu.edu.hk, sunyoh@cityu.edu.hk
Abstract The present study investigates the effect of L1 tone on L2 acquisition at the segmental level. In particular, the study examines how Mandarin tone may influence the production and perception of the initial clusters Cr- in English with the occurrence of an epenthetic vowel, C[V]r-. First, the acoustic features of the epenthetic vowels were compared with those of full vowels produced by Mandarin speakers. Second, the perception of the epenthetic and full vowels by Mandarin speakers and native English speakers was compared. For perception, the epenthetic vowels were manipulated in constant duration and tone and compared with the original ones. Both identification and discrimination tasks were conducted to find the differences between the three variations. Results show that the epenthetic vowels with variations of tone and duration did not affect the perception by the English speakers that they showed similarly low accuracy in the three tasks. However, the Mandarin speakers showed significantly lower accuracy when tone was manipulated in the toneconstant task. Findings suggest that L1 feature, tone, in Mandarin is significantly involved in L2 speech acquisition. The present study also intends to support the attention-based model over distance-based models for the theoretic debates on how L2 categories are acquired. Index Terms: L2 acquisition, English consonant clusters, tonal effect, Mandarin tone.
1. Introduction Literature reported that Mandarin learners of English tend to insert a short vowel within initial consonant clusters [1-3]. This is believed to result from transfer of Mandarin syllable structure (CV/CVN), because English CC onsets are not allowed and hence rendered as CV [4] [5]. Investigations of such epenthesis are largely within segment and syllable levels and seldom involve tone, an important feature contrasting English and Mandarin [6]. Evidence shows that tone language speakers will transfer the perception of stress in stress-timed languages (e.g., English) onto pitch variations in their native languages [7]. Given that epenthesis only happens in unstressed syllables [4] [5] [7], we may predict that Mandarin speakers might realize the CC onset with an epenthesis (i.e. CVC) if there exists a low tone created in re-syllabification (which inserted an unstressed syllable). Since Mandarin extensively uses low tone and neutral tone to contrast lexical meaning, such transfers are possible. In the current study, we intend to examine how tone and epenthetic vowel are related in Mandarin speakers L2 production and perception of the English initial stop-/r/ clusters. First, we compared the acoustic features of the epenthetic vowels with those of full vowels (e.g., krit vs. kerit). Second, we compared the perception of the epenthetic and full vowels by Mandarin learners of English with that of native English speakers, intending to find the role tone plays
in helping Mandarin speakers forming L2 segmental categories. Apart from investigating the tonal effect in L2 speech, we are also interested in framing a suitable theoretic model for the inclusion of such tonal effect in second language speech acquisition. Previous studies on L2 speech learning were largely done within either distance-based models, e.g., Speech Learning Model (SLM) or attention-based models, e.g., Automatic Selective Perception model (ASP model). The SLM [8] posits that experienced learners will establish an intermediate category in between L1 and L2 based on the distance of L1 and L2 categories. However, it does not touch upon features that cannot be described by distance, such as tone and intonation. By contrast, L2 category formation predictions by ASP model [9] are based on varied distribution of attention to different dimensions of an L2 sound, and are not restricted to segments only. If the first type of model is true, then segmental production cannot be influenced by tonal variations because the perceptual distance of two segments was essentially uninfluenced by tones [8] [10] [11]. If the second type is true, it is possible that tone can influence segmental production.
2. Method 2.1. Participants Three Mandarin speakers of English (two male, one female) participated in the production part of the study. Their productions were analyzed acoustically and served as the material for perception tests. Participants were all from the old districts of the city of Beijing, and pre-screened with a nativespeaker perception test. None reported any history of speech or hearing impairment, and all had received training in singing. Ten listeners participated in the perception part of the study, including five Mandarin advanced learners of English (three males, two females, mean age=22.5) and five native English speakers (three males, two females, mean age=24). Mandarin listeners were all native speakers of Beijing Mandarin. They were freshmen university students at Hong Kong universities. They started learning English on or before 6 years old, and all came from middle class families. Native English listeners were exchange students coming from the east coast of the USA, all speaking standard American accent. None of the listeners were reported of hearing deficiencies and none had professional musical training. To ensure the relative uniformity of dialectical and other linguistic background, all 30 Mandarin students interested in participating in the experiment were asked to complete a revised version of LEAP-Q questionnaire for linguistic experience [12]. The questionnaire recorded both linguistic and biographical experiences such as history of foreign language learning, age, GPA, and English standard test scores. Only students with similar linguistic experience (std<1.5) were chosen for the perception tests. All participants,