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Effects of Phonetic Similarity in the Identification of Mandarin Tones

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Abstract

Tonal languages differ in how they use phonetic correlates e.g. average pitch height and pitch direction, for tonal contrasts. Thus, native speakers of a tonal language may need to adjust their attention to familiar or unfamiliar phonetic cues when perceiving non-native tones. On the other hand, speakers of a non-tonal language may need to develop sensitivity to tonal correlates absent from their native system. The current study examines and compares five language groups’ perception of two synthesized Mandarin tones: the high level tone and the high falling tone. It aims to examine how listeners from tonal and non-tonal backgrounds identify and categorize acoustically equidistant pitches varying along two phonetic dimensions: pitch onset and slope. Results reveal “universal” perceptual patterns across groups and also tendencies caused by native tonal systems. Our findings confirm that L1 tonal and prosodic systems affect speakers’ sensitivity to novel perceptual cues and their abilities to discern relevant phonetic differences.

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the City University of Hong Kong CTL Small-Scale Research Grant and CLASS Grant (#9610158) to the first author. We thank the anonymous reviewers who kindly offered meticulous and insightful comments in each round of revision. Responsibilities of all errors and omissions remain mine. We also thank Zhang Caicai, Liang Lei, Pham Thu Ha, for their help with recruiting participants and collecting data. Special thanks go to our former research associate, Dr. Shuai Lan, for her assistance in data collection, preliminary statistics analysis, and her input to an earlier draft of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China

    Bin Li & Jing Shao

  2. Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong S.A.R., China

    Jing Shao

  3. Program of Applied Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts, Ashford University, San Diego, CA, USA

    Mingzhen Bao

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  1. Bin Li
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  2. Jing Shao
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Correspondence to Bin Li.

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Li, B., Shao, J. & Bao, M. Effects of Phonetic Similarity in the Identification of Mandarin Tones. J Psycholinguist Res 46, 107–124 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9422-6

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