Interlingual two-to-one mapping of tonal categories

Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilin-guals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English bilinguals out-performed English speakers, and, for bilinguals, overall accuracy was correlated with Mandarin dominance. Experiment 2 taught 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 25 English speakers novel words with Mandarin-like tones, but English-like phonemes and phonotactics. The Mandarin-dominance advantages observed in Experiment 1 disappeared when words were English-like. Experiment 3 contrasted Mandarin-like vs. English-like words in a within-subjects design, providing even stronger evidence that bilinguals can process tone language-specifically. Bilinguals (N = 58), regardless of language dominance, attended more to tone than English speakers without Mandarin experience (N = 28), but only when words were Mandarin-like—not when they were English-like. Mandarin-English bilinguals thus tailor tone processing to the within-word language context.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2020

The present study examined whether second language (L2) learners can lexically encode the tonal contrasts that do not occur in their native language. Advanced Korean learners of Mandarin performed a lexical decision task with medium-term repetition priming. The repeated words were either identical or interchanged with confusable tones. The results showed that advanced L2 learners behaved similarly to the native listeners in processing of L2 tones in favor of the correct lexical items, but still showed differences from native listeners, suggesting that L2 learners may have difficulty in utilizing the L2 sounds for word recognition. V

Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2016, 2016

This is a preliminary study examining the tonal production of L1 Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM) speakers who are also fluent in Mandarin. Both languages have tone sandhi rules in which certain lexical tones are neutralized in non-XP-final positions. Disyllabic Mandarin and TSM words with different tonal combinations in frame sentences were examined. The results suggest that Mandarin Tone 1, Tone 3 and Tone 4 were assimilated to TSM high level, low falling and high falling tones respectively due to their surface phonetic similarity. L1 TSM speakers can apply Mandarin Tone 3 sandhi without difficulties, but the L1 sandhi rule has affected the production of Mandarin Tone 2. Mandarin Tone 2 (rising tone) was mapped to TSM rising tone (Tone 5) in phrase-final position, but not elsewhere due to the phonological constraints operated through tone sandhi. Mandarin Tone 2 at a non-XP-final position was produced with pitch contours in-between TSM rising and mid level tones, creating a " merged " category. The findings seem to indicate that aside from the phonetic properties, the L2 tones are also influenced by the L1 phonological rules such as tone sandhi in the production of non-native tones, creating context-specific tone production.

Bilinguals of Jinan Mandarin and Standard Chinese (SC) produce different tonal variants of the same Jinan word. These words typically share the same segmental composition as their SC counterparts. Among the tonal variants, usually only one variant is identical to the tonal contour of the SC counterpart (variant_id). The word-wise probability of variant_id varies between 0 and 1. Naming latency data were elicited for 400 Jinan words from 42 speakers to test how speakers of Jinan store the tonal variants, in particular, whether those who produce the variant_id might also store the tonally non identical variant (variant_ni) which they do not produce. We hypothesize that if a speaker who produces the variant_id does not store the unproduced variant_ni, the naming latency should only depend on the speaker's choice of variant_id (yes/ no) and not on the word-wise probability of variant_id. On the other hand, if a speaker who produces the variant_id does store the unproduced variant_ni, the naming latency should depend on the word-wise probability of the speaker's chosen variant. Our results provide support to the latter storage account.

The current study pursues Ye & Connine’s (1999) suggestion that tonal information is much more important when words are presented in context, than in isolation. Disyllabic Mandarin words were either presented normally, or with changes in their segmental and/or tonal structure. Critically, these items were presented in isolation, in sentence context, and in idioms; previous studies have not examined these issues in sentential context. In Experiment 1, native Mandarin speakers made lexical decisions about these items. In Experiment 2, the critical stimuli were presented in white noise, and the listeners’ task was to detect the vowels and the tones of the stimuli. The results supported a more important role for tonal cues when the stimulus is presented in context than when it is in isolation; this pattern depended on the task conditions, as suggested by Soto-Faraco et al. (2001), and Mattys et al. (2005).

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2013

While it is well established that non-native speakers differ from native speakers in their perception and/or production of Mandarin lexical tones, empirical studies focusing on non-native learners are still limited. The objective of this study is to add to the current understanding of lexical tone perception by comparing native speakers of standard Korean from the Seoul/Kyunggi area differing in Mandarin experience (NK1, NK2) with native speakers of Mandarin. NK1 (n = 10) had no experience with Mandarin whereas NK2 (n = 10) consisted of highly advanced learners of Mandarin. A group of 10 native Mandarin (NM) speakers was included as controls. Accuracy of perception of six tone pairs (T1-T2, T1-T3, T1-T4, T2-T3, T2-T4, T3-T4) was assessed in a four-alternative forced-choice discrimination test. As expected, the NK2 group with extensive Mandarin learning experience resembled the NM group to a greater extent than did the NK1 group. T2-T3 was the hardest pair for both NK groups, but NK2 had the largest advantage over NK1 for this pair. Apart from T2-T3 which is generally considered difficult, tone pairs involving T1 caused some misperception by the NK groups. This may be related to the difficulty with perceiving a level tone which shows the least fundamental frequency (F0) movement and possibly has limited perceptual salience.

Recent research about the role of lexical tone in Chinese word recognition has arrived at varying conclusions. It remains unclear how tone is represented in the mental lexicon and how tone constrains the activation of lexical candidates. In a set of priming experiments, we manipulated the effect of tonal information on lexical processing by comparing the response times to prime and target syllables that share no segmental content but that either match or mismatch in lexical tone. In two experimental paradigms, shadowing and lexical decision, subjects consistently responded more slowly to target words that were preceded by a prime that contained a matching lexical tone. We argue that our results suggest a group activation of words with the same lexical tone that then compete during lexical selection. Our findings support the view that tones constrain lexical activation, but differently than reported in previous studies.

1996

Pairs of Thai tones were presented for perceptual discrimination in three linguistic contexts [normal speech, low-pass filtered speech, and as musical (violin) sounds] to tonal language speakers, Thai and Cantonese, and non-tonal (English) language speakers. English speakers discriminated the tonal contrasts significantly better in the musical context than in filtered speech, and in filtered speech better than in full speech. On the other hand, both Thai and Cantonese speakers perceived the tonal contrasts equally well in all three contexts. Thus, developmental absence of exposure to lexical tone results in a linguistic mode of processing which involves the attenuation of a basic psychoacoustic ability, pitch discrimination

LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 2019, VOL. 34, NO. 5, 580–598, 2019

Phonological similarity affects bilingual lexical access of etymologically-related translation equivalents (ETEs). Jinan Mandarin (JM) and Standard Chinese (SC) are closely related and share many ETEs, which are usually orthographically and segmentally identical but vary in tonal similarity. Using an auditory lexical decision experiment and Generalised Additive Modelling, the present study investigates how cross-linguistic tonal similarity interacts with language of operation and how the switching of language across blocks influences SC-JM bilinguals' auditory lexical processing of ETEs. Bilinguals showed a language dominance effect, indicating that ETEs are specified with separated word-form representations. Compared with SC tonal monolinguals, bilinguals showed a discontinuous bilingual auditory lexical advantage, instead of a classical bilingual lexical disadvantage. The dynamic role of cross-linguistic tonal similarity in auditory word processing is discussed in light of the bilinguals' attentional shift with the change of language mode at the pre-lexical and lexical stages. ARTICLE HISTORY

2019

Mandarin is one of the most representative tonal languages with four contrastive tone categories (Tone 1 (T1): high level (ā), Tone 2 (T2): high rising (á), Tone 3 (T3): dipping (ǎ), Tone 4 (T4): high falling (à)). Learning Mandarin tones is known to be difficult for speakers from diverse first language (L1) backgrounds. We examined how individuals differing in L1 (English, Japanese) and experience with Mandarin (learners, non-learners) might respond to six pairs of Mandarin tones using a four-alternative forced-choice discrimination test. The results showed that while Japanese non-learners generally outperformed English non-learners, possibly benefitting from contrastive use of pitch accent in L1, two groups of learners did not differ in their perception of Mandarin lexical tones. This suggests that English speakers can overcome the initial disadvantage and learn lexical tones in a new language as successfully as speakers of other Asian language.