Influence of Chinese Er Suffixation on American English R-colored Vowels by Northeast Chinese EFL Learners

R-coloring is one of the most important features of American English, while er suffixation is a phonetic phenomenon in Chinese. The paper, based on the Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r) proposed by Flege, analyzes the acquisition of American English r-colored vowels by 30 EFL learners in Northeast China through perception and production experiments. Findings suggest (1) The production of the unfamiliar phones /(sic)r/, /epsilon r/, and /Ir/ is close to that of native speakers; and the production of the similar phones /(sic)/ and /ar/ is close to that of L1 (except /partial derivative/). (2) Perceptually, participants perceive English /partial derivative/ and /(sic)/ are similar to Chinese /gamma r/; and English /Ir/ is similar to Chinese /er/. In terms of production, English /partial derivative/ and /(sic)/ are close to L1 in value of the F3 difference, the pattern chart of duration ratio and F3 descending ratio, and the concentration area of rhotacized rhyme, and English /Ir/ is close to Chinese /er/ in duration ratio. Such findings verify the SLM-r hypothesis that unfamiliar phones are better acquired than similar phones, and that the perception and production are co-evolving.