Prosodic Transfer in the Beginning-and Advanced-Level Chinese Learners' Production of English Word Stress

Abstract

Abstract. English second language (L2) learners often experience difficulties in producing native-like English lexical stress. It is unknown which acoustic correlates (F0, duration and intensity) are the most problematic for Chinese learners of different proficiency levels. The present study investigates the prosodic transfer effects of first language (L1) on the production of English lexical stress by 10 beginning-level and 10 advanced-level Chinese learners of English. Results showed that L2 learners produced less native-like stress patterns in terms of acoustic correlates, values varied according to their L2 proficiency. Although all Chinese learners of English used F0, duration, and intensity to identify stress, they performed differently on the use of duration, possibly due to L1 tonal transfer.