Native and non-native identification of acoustically modified Mandarin tones

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2006-11, Vol.120 (5_Supplement), p.3175-3175
• Main Authors: Lee, Chao-Yang, Tao, Liang, Bond, Zinny S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4787949

Lexical tones have been known to be one of the most difficult aspects of tone languages to master for non-native learners. Extending upon Gottfried and Suiter’s study [J. Phonetics 25, 207–231 (1997)] of tone identification in silent center syllables, four experiments examined how well Mandarin tones can be identified with partial acoustic information and whether native and non-native listeners show differences in the use of the limited acoustic information. Twelve minimal tone pairs including all six tonal contrasts in Mandarin were digitally processed to generate four types of stimuli: silent-center, center-only, onset-only, and intact syllables. The stimuli were presented in the original carrier phrase, excised from the carrier phrase, or excised and pasted onto another carrier phrase. Participants included 40 non-native speakers with 1–3 years of Mandarin instruction at Ohio University and 40 native speakers. Both learners and native speakers could identify the tones under all modification conditions at better than chance levels. For both groups, the onset-only syllables were the most difficult. Tone 2 received the fewest correct identifications and longest response times, being confused with tone 3.