Vowel Production in Mandarin Accented English and American English: Kinematic and Acoustic Data from the Marquette University Mandarin Accented English Corpus

Few electromagnetic articulography (EMA) datasets are publicly available, and none have focused systematically on non-native accented speech. We introduce a kinematic-acoustic database of speech from 40 (gender and dialect balanced) participants producing upper-Midwestern American English (AE) L1 or Mandarin Accented English (MAE) L2 (Beijing or Shanghai dialect base). The Marquette University EMA-MAE corpus will be released publicly to help advance research in areas such as pronunciation modeling, acoustic-articulatory inversion, L1-L2 comparisons, pronunciation error detection, and accent modification training. EMA data were collected at a 400 Hz sampling rate with synchronous audio using the NDI Wave System. Articulatory sensors were placed on the midsagittal lips, lower incisors, and tongue blade and dorsum, as well as on the lip corner and lateral tongue body. Sensors provide five degree-of-freedom measurements including three-dimensional sensor position and two-dimensional orientation (pitch and roll). In the current work we analyze kinematic and acoustic variability between L1 and L2 vowels. We address the hypothesis that MAE is characterized by larger differences in the articulation of back vowels than front vowels and smaller vowel spaces compared to AE. The current results provide a seminal comparison of the kinematics and acoustics of vowel production between MAE and AE speakers

Production of neutral tone in Mandarin by heritage, native, and second language speakers

This study examined the properties of neutral tone (T0) in Mandarin as produced by three groups: native speakers raised in a Mandarin-speaking environment (L1ers), second language learners raised in an English-speaking environment (L2ers), and heritage language speakers (HLers) exposed to Mandarin from birth but currently dominant in English. T0 production was elicited in both obligatory and non-obligatory contexts, acoustically analyzed, and perceptually evaluated by Mandarin L1ers. Acoustic data indicated little difference among groups in pitch contour, but significant differences in duration, especially in the non-obligatory context. Perceptual data revealed relatively low intelligibility of T0 overall, but also a group difference whereby L2ers tended to outperform HLers in the non-obligatory context; nevertheless, L2ers received the lowest goodness ratings, across both contexts. These results thus suggest that phonetic differences between HLers and L2ers are not unidirectional, but instead vary across aspects of the language in accordance with differences in speakers’ linguistic experience.Accepted manuscriptPublished versio

Context effects on second-language learning of tonal contrasts.

Studies of lexical tone  learning generally focus on monosyllabic contexts, while reports of phonetic learning benefits associated with input variability are based largely on experienced learners. This study trained inexperienced learners on Mandarin tonal contrasts to test two hypotheses regarding the influence of context and variability on tone  learning. The first hypothesis was that increased phonetic variability of tones in disyllabic contexts makes initial tone  learning more challenging in disyllabic than monosyllabic words. The second hypothesis was that the learnability of a given tone varies across contexts due to differences in tonal variability. Results of a word learning experiment supported both hypotheses: tones were acquired less successfully in disyllables than in monosyllables, and the relative difficulty of disyllables was closely related to contextual tonal variability. These results indicate limited relevance of monosyllable-based data on Mandarin learning for the disyllabic majority of the Mandarin lexicon. Furthermore, in the short term, variability can diminish learning; its effects are not necessarily beneficial but dependent on acquisition stage and other learner characteristics. These findings thus highlight the importance of considering contextual variability and the interaction between variability and type of learner in the design, interpretation, and application of research on phonetic learning