Tonal confusions in Mandarin by Cantonese listeners

Abstract

It is well‐attested that linguistic experience affects the perception of non‐native sounds. The vast majority of research on L2 perception has been carried out on segmental features from the perspective of phonetic similarity between the L1 and L2 sound systems. The general goal of this study is to expand our understanding of cross‐linguistic comparison in non‐native speech perception, focusing on the somewhat understudied area of perceptual assimilation at a suprasegmental level. More specifically, it deals with comparisons of prosodic systems in two tone languages, Mandarin and Cantonese. The current study examined perception of Mandarin tones by Cantonese listeners. In Experiment 1, Mandarin tones were presented and the Cantonese listeners were requested to identify which tone they heard. In Experiment 2, the Cantonese listeners were instructed to rate how similar each Mandarin tone was to a Cantonese tone. Preliminary results suggest that tonal confusion errors may result from not only the similar acoustic properties of the tone pairs but also perceptual assimilation between L1 and L2 tonal contrasts. These findings are discussed in terms of the effects of L1 prosodic system on L2 perception and how perceptually assimilation patterns predict listeners’ perception performance at the domain of lexical tones.