Does Second Language Experience Modulate Perception of Tones in a Third Language?

Abstract

It is unclear what roles native language (L1) and second language (L2) play in the perception of lexical tones in a third language (L3). In tone perception, listeners with different language backgrounds use different fundamental frequency (F0). While English listeners use F0 height, Mandarin listeners rely more on F0 direction. The present study addresses whether knowledge of Mandarin, particularly as an L2, results in speakers' reliance on F0 direction in their perception of L3 (Cantonese) tones. Fifteen English-speaking L2 learners of Mandarin constituted the target group, and 15 English monolinguals and 15 native Mandarin speakers, with no background in other tonal languages, were included as control groups. All groups had to discriminate Cantonese tones either by distinguishing a contour tone from a level tone (F0 direction pair) or a level tone from another level tone (F0 height pair). The results showed that L2 learners patterned differently from both control groups by using F0 direction as well as F0 height under the influence of L1 and L2 experience. The acoustics of the tones also affected all listeners' discrimination. When L2 and L3 are similar in terms of the presence of lexical tone, L2 experience modulates the perception of L3 tones.

Effects of linguistic experience on the perception of high-variability non-native tones

“…That is, tone listeners' experience with processing F0 variations at the lexical level may be transferred to aid naive perception of tonal contrasts in another language. This result contrasts with findings from Qin and Mok (2011) and Qin and Jongman (2015) and the pretest of Francis et al (2008), in so far as Cantonese level tone perception is concerned. It may be that, as in Qin and Mok (2011) and Qin and Jongman (2015), English listeners' advantage of perceptual sensitivity to F0 height is only present in a more low-level psychoacoustic task (i.e., an AX discrimination task) with single-speaker stimuli (such that speaker normalization is not required).…”

“…To account for a) Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. these results, Qin and Mok (2011) and Qin and Jongman (2015) argued that tone listeners (i.e., Mandarin listeners) are more sensitive to F0 direction, whereas non-tone listeners give more perceptual weighting to F0 height.…”

“…While some studies reported that tone speakers outperformed non-tone speakers in non-native tone perception (Liang and van Heuven, 2007;Wayland and Guion, 2004), others found no significant performance difference between the two groups Hao, 2012;So and Best, 2010). Yet other researchers have found selective advantages of tone language experience in the perception of non-native tones (Lee et al, 1996;Qin and Jongman, 2015;Qin and Mok, 2011).…”

“…The other factor that has been addressed is tonal type, especially concerning the difference between level tones-which contrast in pitch height-and contour tones-which contrast in both pitch height and pitch direction. Qin and Mok (2011) and Qin and Jongman (2015) found that Mandarin listeners had better performance than English listeners in distinguishing Cantonese contour-level and contour-contour tone pairs; conversely, English listeners performed better than Mandarin listeners in distinguishing Cantonese level-level tone pairs. To account for a) Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.…”

“…Without having to address the interaction of multiple F0 cues that characterize contour tones, the cross-linguistic perception results can be more easily interpreted, and tone language experience effects more clearly observed, and (2) it is a topic where conflicting effects of language background [Qin and Mok (2011) and Qin and Jongman (2015) vs Francis et al (2008) 1 ] were reported. Using a high-variability testing paradigm we assessed how tone language experience modulates listeners' ability to normalize for speaker variability when acoustic cues typically used for speaker normalization (e.g., contextual information, repeated exposure to the same voice) are absent.…”