An Acoustic Experimental Study on Sound Acquisition in Standard Chinese by Native Speakers of Uyghur

The present acoustic experiment studies the acquisition of Standard Chinese vowels by native speakers of Uyghur. The results indicate that in identifying the 7 vowels of Standard Chinese produced by the native Han Chinese speakers, Uyghur subjects with high Chinese proficiency perform better both in accuracy and reaction time than Uyghur subjects with low Chinese proficiency, and all the Uyghur subjects are not good in perceiving vowels /partial derivative/, /i/ and /epsilon/. The results of the experiment support the Speech Learning Model and the Perceptual Assimilation Model. In addition, it shows that the second language speech acquisition is restricted by the first language phonological system.