Production of the English /(sic)/ by Mandarin-English Bilingual Speakers

被引:1
|
作者
Chen, Shuwen [1 ]
Whalen, D. H. [2 ,3 ]
Mok, Peggy Pik Ki [4 ,5 ]
机构
[1] Chinese Acad Social Sci, Inst Linguist, Beijing, Peoples R China
[2] CUNY, New York, NY USA
[3] Haskins Labs Inc, New Haven, CT USA
[4] Chinese Univ Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peoples R China
[5] Chinese Univ Hong Kong, Dept Linguist & Modern Languages, Shatin, Leung Kau Kui Bldg, Hong Kong, Peoples R China
关键词
English /(sic)/; Mandarin-English bilinguals; articulation; ultrasound imaging; acoustics; R-VERTICAL-BAR; TRAINING JAPANESE LISTENERS; TONGUE SHAPE; ULTRASOUND; PERCEPTION; RETROFLEX; ARTICULATION; ACQUISITION; VOWELS; ADULTS;
D O I
10.1177/00238309241230895
中图分类号
R36 [病理学]; R76 [耳鼻咽喉科学];
学科分类号
100104 ; 100213 ;
摘要
Rhotic sounds are some of the most challenging sounds for L2 learners to acquire. This study investigates the production of English rhotic sounds by Mandarin-English bilinguals with two English proficiency levels. The production of the English /(sic)/ by 17 Mandarin-English bilinguals was examined with ultrasound imaging and compared with the production of native English speakers. The ultrasound data show that bilinguals can produce native-like bunched and retroflex gestures, but the distributional pattern of tongue shapes in various contexts differs from that of native speakers. Acoustically, the English /(sic)/ produced by bilinguals had a higher F3 and F3-F2, as well as some frication noise in prevocalic /(sic)/, features similar to the Mandarin /(sic)/. Mandarin-English bilinguals did produce language-specific phonetic realizations for the English and Mandarin /(sic)/s. There was a positive correlation between language proficiency and English-specific characteristics of /(sic)/ by Mandarin-English bilinguals in both articulation and acoustics. Phonetic similarities facilitated rather than hindered L2 speech learning in production: Mandarin-English bilinguals showed better performance in producing the English /(sic)/ allophones that were more similar to the Mandarin /(sic)/ (syllabic and postvocalic /(sic)/s) than producing the English /(sic)/ allophone that was less similar to the Mandarin /(sic)/ (prevocalic /(sic)/). This study contributes to our understanding of the mechanism of speech production in late bilinguals.
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页数:38
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