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

Perception of nonnative tonal contrasts by Mandarin-English and English-Mandarin sequential bilinguals

This study examined the role of acquisition order and crosslinguistic similarity in influencing transfer at the initial stage of perceptually acquiring a tonal third language (L3). Perception of tones in Yoruba and Thai was tested in adult sequential bilinguals representing three different first (L1) and second language (L2) backgrounds: L1 Mandarin-L2 English (MEBs), L1 English-L2 Mandarin (EMBs), and L1 English-L2 intonational/non-tonal (EIBs). MEBs outperformed EMBs and EIBs in discriminating L3 tonal contrasts in both languages, while EMBs showed a small advantage over EIBs on Yoruba. All groups showed better overall discrimination in Thai than Yoruba, but group differences were more robust in Yoruba. MEBs’ and EMBs’ poor discrimination of certain L3 contrasts was further reflected in the L3 tones being perceived as similar to the same Mandarin tone; however, EIBs, with no knowledge of Mandarin, showed many of the same similarity judgments. These findings thus suggest that L1 tonal experience has a particularly facilitative effect in L3 tone perception, but there is also a facilitative effect of L2 tonal experience. Further, crosslinguistic perceptual similarity between L1/L2 and L3 tones, as well as acoustic similarity between different L3 tones, play a significant role at this early stage of L3 tone acquisition.Published versio

Can visual feedback improve English speakers' Mandarin tone production?

Non-native tones are considered challenging for adult second language speakers to perceive and produce. The current study examined the effect of a laboratory-based intensive training in improving American English speakers’ tone production. Participants’ task was to repeat Mandarin words after the model. There were two conditions in the experiment: in one condition, participants did not get any external feedback; whereas in the other condition, participants received detailed visual feedback, which was the pitch contour of their tone production alongside the native version. Eight participants completed training with no feedback and another eight participants were trained with visual feedback. Results revealed that participants in both groups did not improve their tone production after training, and participants trained with visual feedback did not show more improvement than those trained with no feedback. Given the lack of improvement in participants’ tone production after training, methodological and theoretical limitations with respect to the use of a repetition-based training paradigm are discussed

The Effectiveness of Interactive Instruction on the Intonation Learning of Chinese College Learners

The paper reported the findings from the study on the different effects of two form-focused instructional techniques on the EFL learner’s learning of English intonation. The purposes are to investigate: 1) do the intonation instructions reset EFL leaner’s interlanguage phonology, e.g., improving their intonation？; and 2) if there were some improvements of the interlanguage phonology through the pronunciation instruction, do two types of explicit instruction, differing in the manner of instruction, have the same or different effects on EFL leaner’s learning of English intonation? To which extent, the instruction is better than the other. The examination of F0 range and pitch contour in the study indicated that 1) most of the Chinese test subjects could improve their intonation performance after the instructions; 2) the experimental group input plus interaction(II) outperformed the experimental group input plus explanation(IE). The gain in intonation awareness leads to their (II group) significant improvement in the prosodic performance. Key words: Intonation instruction, cognitive approach, communicative approach Résumé: Le présent article reporte les résultats d’étude sur les différents effets de deux techniques d’enseignement focalisées sur la forme dans l’apprentissage de l’intonation anglaise des étudiants qui ont l’anglais comme langue étrangère (EFL). Le but de l’article consiste à investiguer : (1) Est-ce que l’instruction d’intonation influence la phonologie de l’interlangage des apprenants d’EFL, par exemple, améliorer leur intonation ? (2) S’il y a des améliorations de la phonologie de l’interlangage par l’instruction de prononciation, est-ce que les deux type d’instruction explicites, différant l’un de l’autre dans la manière d’instruction, ont les mêmes ou différents effets sur l’apprentissage de l’intonation anglaise des apprenants. Dans cette mesure, l’instruction est meilleure que l’autre. L’étude indique : (1) la plupart des tests chinois peuvent améliorer leur intonation après l’instruction ; (2) le groupe expérimental qui insiste sur l’interaction (II) dépasse le groupe expérimental qui met l’accent sur l’explication(IE). L’avantage du groupe II dans l’intonation les conduit à des progrès signifiants dans la performance prosodique. Mots-Clés: instruction d’intonation, approche cognitive, approche communicative 摘 要：本研究通過分析兩種語音教學方法（認知語音教學法和交際語音教學法）對 10 名英語專業學生的朗讀的語音語調習得的效果旨在解決以下問題：1）語音教學是否能改善外語學習者的仲介語音的語調？ 2）如果學習者的語音語調能夠被提高改善，哪種語音教學方法，認知語音教學還是交際性語音教學，對學習者的仲介語語音語調的改善更高？通過對 10名女受試者的在前測和後測的朗讀語調的F0 值的對比表明 1）中國英語學習者的仲介語音語調能夠通過語音教學能夠有所提高; 2）在對前測和後測的F0 值的對比分析表明，5名來自認知教學法的學生的 F0值要跟接近 2名英語本族語者的 F0值。 關鍵詞：語音教學；在語音教學；認知教學法；交際教學法；英語語

Acoustic cues to tonal contrasts in Mandarin: Implications for cochlear implants

The present study systematically manipulated three acoustic cues-fundamental frequency (f0), amplitude envelope, and duration-to investigate their contributions to tonal contrasts in Mandarin. Simplified stimuli with all possible combinations of these three cues were presented for identification to eight normal-hearing listeners, all native speakers of Mandarin from Taiwan. The f0 information was conveyed either by an f0-controlled sawtooth carrier or a modulated noise so as to compare the performance achievable by a clear indication of voice f0 and what is possible with purely temporal coding of f0. Tone recognition performance with explicit f0 was much better than that with any combination of other acoustic cues (consistently greater than 90% correct compared to 33%-65%; chance is 25%). In the absence of explicit f0, the temporal coding of f0 and amplitude envelope both contributed somewhat to tone recognition, while duration had only a marginal effect. Performance based on these secondary cues varied greatly across listeners. These results explain the relatively poor perception of tone in cochlear implant users, given that cochlear implants currently provide only weak cues to f0, so that users must rely upon the purely temporal (and secondary) features for the perception of tone. (c) 2008 Acoustical Society of America

Transfer Effect of Speech-sound Learning on Auditory-motor Processing of Perceived Vocal Pitch Errors

Speech perception and production are intimately linked. There is evidence that speech motor learning results in changes to auditory processing of speech. Whether speech motor control benefits from perceptual learning in speech, however, remains unclear. This event-related potential study investigated whether speech-sound learning can modulate the processing of feedback errors during vocal pitch regulation. Mandarin speakers were trained to perceive five Thai lexical tones while learning to associate pictures with spoken words over 5 days. Before and after training, participants produced sustained vowel sounds while they heard their vocal pitch feedback unexpectedly perturbed. As compared to the pre-training session, the magnitude of vocal compensation significantly decreased for the control group, but remained consistent for the trained group at the post-training session. However, the trained group had smaller and faster N1 responses to pitch perturbations and exhibited enhanced P2 responses that correlated significantly with their learning performance. These findings indicate that the cortical processing of vocal pitch regulation can be shaped by learning new speech-sound associations, suggesting that perceptual learning in speech can produce transfer effects to facilitating the neural mechanisms underlying the online monitoring of auditory feedback regarding vocal production

Effects of variance and input distribution on the training of L2 learners' tone categorization

Recent psycholinguistic findings showed that (a) a multi-modal phonetic training paradigm that encodes visual, interactive information is more effective in training L2 learners' perception of novel categories, (b) decreasing the acoustic variance of a phonetic dimension allows the learners to more effectively shift the perceptual weight towards this dimension, and (c) using an implicit word learning task in which the words are contrasted with different lexical tones improves naïve listeners' categorization of Mandarin Chinese tones. This dissertation investigates the effectiveness of video game training, variance manipulation and high variability training in the context of implicit word learning, in which American English speakers without any tone language experience learn four Mandarin Chinese tones by playing a video game. A video game was created in which each of four different animals is associated with a Chinese tone. The task for the participants is to select each animal's favorite food to feed it. At the beginning of the game, each animal is clearly visible. As the game progresses, the images of the animals become more and more vague and eventually visually indistinguishable. However, the four Chinese tones associated with the animals are played all through the game. Thus, the participants need to depend on the auditory information in order to clear the difficult levels. In terms of the training stimuli, the tone tokens were manipulated to have a greater variance on the pitch height dimension, but a smaller variance on the pitch direction dimension, in order to shift the English listeners' perception to pitch direction, a dimension that native Chinese listeners crucially rely on. A variety of pretests and posttests were used to investigate both the English speakers' perception of the tones and their weighting of the acoustic dimensions. These training stimuli were compared to other types of training stimuli used in the literature, such as the high variability natural stimuli and tones embedded in non-minimal pairs. A group of native English speakers was used as the control group without any tone input. A native control group was also included. The video game training for each speaker consisted of four 30-minute sessions on four different days, and 60 participants (including both the non-native control and native control group) participated in the experiments. The crucial findings in the study include (1) all naïve listeners in the training condition successfully associated lexical tones with different animals without any explicit feedback after only 2 hours of training; (2) both the resynthesized stimuli with smaller variance on pitch direction and the multi-talker stimuli allowed native English speakers to shift their cue-weighting toward pitch direction and the multi-talker stimuli were more robust in terms of shifting the cue-weighting despite their more heterogeneous distribution in the acoustic space; (3) the multi-talker training allowed for better generalization as the trainees in multi-talker training identified the tones produced by new talkers better than trainees in other conditions; (4) there was a main effect of tone on tone identification and the falling tone was the most challenging one; (5) there is a correlation between cue-weighting and the tone discrimination performance before and after the training; (6) due to individual variability, individuals differed in terms of the amount of tone input they received during the video game training and the number of tone tokens was a significant predictor for the sensitivity to tones calculated as d'. Overall, the study showed an effect of talker variability and variances of multidimensional acoustic space on English speakers' cue-weighting for tone perception and their tone categorization

THE ROLE OF “FOCUS OF ATTENTION” ON THE LEARNING OF NON-NATIVE SPEECH SOUNDS: ENGLISH SPEAKERS LEARNING OF MANDARIN CHINESE TONES

Focus of attention (FOA) has been demonstrated to affect motor learning and performance of many motor skills. FOA refers to the performer’s focus while performing the task. The purpose of this dissertation was to assess the role of FOA in the speech domain. The research asked whether external or internal FOA would individually or differentially facilitate the learning of Mandarin Chinese tones by native English speakers. As a secondary question and experimental control, this study also examined whether the four tones were produced with the same accuracy. Forty-two females, between the ages of 18 and 24 were randomly assigned to one of three groups: external FOA (EFOA), internal FOA (IFOA) and control (C). During the acquisition phase, the groups were instructed to either focus on the sound produced (EFOA), the vibration in the voice box (IFOA), or no related FOA instructions (control). Participants were required to repeat the Mandarin words after an auditory model. To assess learning, the participants repeated the practiced words in a retention test, and repeated similar but unpracticed words during a transfer test. The data was collected in two sessions. The dependent variables were the root mean squared error (acoustic measure) and percentage of correctly perceived tones (perceptual measure). There was a significant difference among the four Mandarin Chinese tones for the three groups (Tones 1 and 4 were produced with significantly higher accuracy than Tones 2 and 3) before acquisition phase. There was, however, no significant difference among the three FOA groups on the dependent variables. The results contradict the FOA effects in the literature derived from limb motor learning and oral-nonspeech learning experiments. This study represents the first attempt to test the FOA in the speech domain. As such, it is premature to draw firm conclusions about the role of FOA in speech motor learning based on these results. The discussion focuses on factors that might have led to the current results. Because FOA represents a potential factor that might affect speech motor learning, future research is warranted to study the effect of FOA in the speech domain

Training Non-tonal Speakers in the Perception and Production of Mandarin Tones in Disyllabic Words

[[abstract]]This thesis aims to address the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical issues of tonal acquisition in a second language (L2). The present study investigated the effects of three training approaches on the perceptual and production learning of the four Mandarin lexical tones by groups of non-tonal beginning learners. The experiment employed a pretest-posttest paradigm. Fifteen non-tonal learners of Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan received two weeks of training as extracurricular activities. Based on learners’ choices, one group (the A Group, n=5) received perceptual training only with auditory feedback involving four-way forced choice identification tasks with immediate feedback. A second group (the AM Group, n=5) received perceptual training with auditory and meaning-bearing feedback (i.e., corresponding pictures and English equivalents of the stimuli) involving the same identification tasks during training. A third group (the AV Group, n=5) received perceptual and production training with auditory and visual feedback showing pitch contours with which trainees can compare their own productions. The same training stimuli were used in the three training approaches. Following training, a posttest and a generalization test were administered immediately. Pretest, post-test, and generalization test data in perception and production were collected from the three groups and were compared for effectiveness of the three training procedures. Percent correct scores, perceptual sensitivities and production accuracy to each tone, and tonal confusions were also analyzed. The results at post-test showed that the three training groups improved significantly in perceptual accuracy of Mandarin tones as compared with a control group (the C Group, n=6) and perceptual learning also generalized to new stimuli by a new speaker. The three training groups’ production accuracy of Mandarin tones also improved significantly at posttest. More importantly, trainees who received the auditory-only feedback (i.e., the A and AM groups) showed a greater perceptual and productive improvement in identifying Mandarin lexical tones than those who were trained with the audio-visual feedback (i.e., the AV group). The results indicated that the three training approaches are effective and laboratory based training techniques can be implemented in extracurricular activities. These findings imply that the A and AM training approaches employed in the current study facilitate the learning of Mandarin tones and promote tonal modification of listeners’ tonal properties of L2 tones. It is also suggested that training only in perception with auditory-only feedback is sufficient for improvement in both perception and production of Mandarin tones.