Acoustic cues to production of English stress levels by non-native speakers of English

Abstract

This study explores production of English stress levels by Mandarin L1 speakers. Specifically, it investigates acoustic cues such as fundamental frequency (F0), duration, amplitude, and vowel quality, focusing on intermediate stress (U) syllables alongside primary-stressed (PS) and unstressed-reduced (UR) syllables. ). Acoustic analyses reveal that English and Mandarin L1 speakers employ similar cues, where duration is crucial for distinguishing PS from U and UR syllables, and F0 for distinguishing UR syllables. These findings demonstrate that Mandarin L1 speakers employ similar acoustic cues as L1 English speakers to produce English stress levels, potentially due to shared acoustic correlates between their L1 and L2