Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-r6qrq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:19:50.939Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do L1 tone language speakers enjoy a perceptual advantage in processing English contrastive prosody?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2022

Jiwon Hwang ,
Chikako Takahashi ,
Hyunah Baek ,
Alex Hong-Lun Yeung  and
Ellen Broselow
Jiwon Hwang*
Affiliation:
Department of Asian and Asian American Studies, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA
Chikako Takahashi
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, New York, USA
Hyunah Baek
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA Division of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
Alex Hong-Lun Yeung
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA
Ellen Broselow
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Jiwon Hwang, E-mail: jiwon.hwang@stonybrook.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study compared the ability of English monolinguals and Mandarin–English bilinguals to make use of English contrastive prosody not only in natural speech but also in masked speech, in which the only available information was prosodic. In contrast to earlier studies (Choi et al., 2019; Choi, 2021; Tong et al., 2015) which found that L1 tone language speakers outperformed native speakers in tasks involving the use of pitch to identify stress position in English, we did not find a similar advantage for Mandarin–English bilinguals in the interpretation of English contrastive prosody, even under conditions that enforced reliance on pitch contours. These findings are consistent with other studies suggesting that the integration of prosodic information into discourse is an area of particular difficulty for L2 speakers.

Keywords

Contrastive prosodyEnglish monolingualsMandarin–English bilingualsbilingual advantage
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 25 , Issue 5 , November 2022 , pp. 816 - 826
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asaridou, SS, Hagoort, P and McQueen, JM (2015) Effects of early bilingual experience with a tone and a non-tone language on speech-music integration. PloS one 10, e0144225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, RH, Davidson, DJ and Bates, DM (2008) Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language 59, 390–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, RH and Milin, P (2010) Analyzing reaction times. International Journal of Psychological Research 3, 12–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, DJ, Levy, R, Scheepers, C and Tily, HJ (2013) Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language 68, 255–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, D, Mächler, M, Bolker, BM and Walker, SC (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67, 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boersma, P and Weenink, D (2019) Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.52, retrieved from http://www.praat.org/Google Scholar
Chang, CB (2016) Bilingual perceptual benefits of experience with a heritage language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 19, 791–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, CB (2018) Perceptual attention as the locus of transfer to nonnative speech perception. Journal of Phonetics 68, 85–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, CB and Mishler, A (2012) Evidence for language transfer leading to a perceptual advantage for non-native listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 132, 2700–2710.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, Y (2010) Post-focus F0 compression – Now you see it, now you don't. Journal of Phonetics 38, 517–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Y (2015) Post-focus compression in English by Mandarin learners. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, (pp. 0287: 1–5). Glasgow, UK.Google Scholar
Chen, Y and Gussenhoven, C (2008) Emphasis and tonal implementation in Standard Chinese. Journal of Phonetics 36, 724–746.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Y, Xu, Y and Guion-Anderson, S (2014) Prosodic realization of focus in bilingual production of Southern Min and Mandarin. Phonetica 71, 249–270.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chodroff, E and Cole, J (2019) The phonological and phonetic encoding of information status in American English nuclear accents. In Calhoun, S, Escudero, P, Tabain, M and Warren, P (eds), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 661–665.Google Scholar
Choi, W (2021) Cantonese advantage on English stress perception: Constraints and neural underpinnings. Neuropsychologia 158, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Choi, W, Tong, X, Gu, F, Tong, X and Wong, L (2017) On the early neural perceptual integrality of tones and vowels. Journal of Neurolinguistics 41, 11–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, W, Tong, X and Samuel, AG (2019) Better than native: Tone language experience enhances English lexical stress discrimination in Cantonese–English bilingual listeners. Cognition 18, 188–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrabaszcz, A, Winn, M, Lin, CY and Idsardi, WJ (2014) Acoustic cues to perception of word stress by English, Mandarin, and Russian speakers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 57, 1468–1479.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dahan, D, Tanenhaus, MK and Chambers, CG (2002) Accent and reference resolution in spoken-language comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 47, 292–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupoux, E, Peperkamp, S and Sebastián-Gallés, N (2010) Limits on bilingualism revisited: Stress ‘deafness’ in simultaneous French–Spanish bilinguals. Cognition 114, 266–275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ischebeck, AK, Friederici, AD and Alter, K (2008) Processing prosodic boundaries in natural and hummed speech: An fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex 18, 541–552.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ito, K and Speer, SR (2008) Anticipatory effects of intonation: eye movements during instructed visual search. Journal of Memory and Language 58, 541–573.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ito, K, Speer, SR and Beckman, ME (2004) Informational status and pitch accent distribution in spontaneous dialogues in English. In Speech Prosody 2004, 279–282.Google Scholar
Kao, S, Hwang, J, Baek, H, Takahashi, C and Broselow, E (2016) International teaching assistants’ production of English focus marking. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 26, 060006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, H and Tremblay, A (2021) Korean listeners’ processing of suprasegmental lexical contrasts in Korean and English: A cue-based transfer approach. Journal of Phonetics 87, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohlstedt, T and Mani, N (2018) The influence of increasing discourse context on L1 and L2 spoken language processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21, 121–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kok, A (2001) On the utility of P3 amplitude as a measure of processing capacity. Psychophysiology 38, 557–577.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuznetsova, A, Brockhoff, PB and Christensen, RH (2017) lmerTest package: tests in linear mixed effects models. Journal of statistical software 82, 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladd, DR (2008) Intonational Phonology (2nd ed., Cambridge Studies in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, A, Perdomo, M and Kaan, E (2020) Native and second-language processing of contrastive pitch accent: An ERP study. Second Language Research 36, 503–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, C, Wang, M, Idsardi, W and Xu, Y (2014) Stress processing in Mandarin and Korean second language learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 17, 316–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, S and Samuel, AG (2007) The role of Mandarin lexical tones in lexical access under different contextual conditions. Language and Cognitive Processes 22, 566–594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ou, S.-c. (2016) Perception of English lexical stress with a marked pitch accent by native speakers of Mandarin. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 14, 1–13.Google Scholar
Ouyang, IC and Kaiser, E (2015) Prosody and information structure in a tone language: an investigation of Mandarin Chinese. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 30, 57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pannekamp, A, Toepel, U, Hahne, A and Friederici, A (2003) The brain's response to hummed sentences. 15th ICPhS Barcelona, 877–879.Google Scholar
Pearson Education. (2019) Versant English Test description and validation report. Retrieved from www.pearson.com/english/versant/tests/english-speaking-test.htmlGoogle Scholar
Perdomo, M and Kaan, E (2021) Prosodic cues in second-language speech processing: A visual world eye-tracking study. Second Language Research 37, 349–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qin, Z, Chien, Y and Tremblay, A (2017) Processing of word-level stress by Mandarin-speaking second language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics 38, 541–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedivy, J, Tanenhaus, M, Chambers, C and Carlson, G (1999) Achieving incremental interpretation through contextual representation. Cognition 71, 109-147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sereno, JA and Lee, H (2015) The contribution of segmental and tonal information in Mandarin spoken word processing. Language and Speech 58, 131–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sorace, A (2011) Pinning down the concept of “interface” in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1, 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tong, X, Lee, SM, Lee, MM and Burnham, D (2015) A tale of two features: perception of Cantonese lexical tone and English lexical stress in Cantonese–English bilinguals. PloS one 10, e0142896.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, T, Liu, J, Lee, YH and Lee, YC (2020) The interaction between tone and prosodic focus in Mandarin Chinese. Language and Linguistics 21, 331–350.Google Scholar
Wayland, R, Guerra, C, Chen, S and Zhu, Y (2019) English focus perception by Mandarin listeners. Languages 4, 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wennerstrom, A (1998) Intonation as cohesion in academic discourse: A study of Chinese speakers of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 20, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, S and Goss, S (2019) Second and third language learners’ sensitivity to Japanese pitch accent is additive: An information-based model of pitch perception. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41, 897–910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, WL and Chung, L (2011) Post-focus compression in English-Cantonese bilingual speakers. In Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 148–151).Google Scholar
Xu, Y (1999) Effect of tone and focus on the formation and alignment of f0 contours. Journal of Phonetics 27, 55–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, Y (2011) Post-focus compression: Cross-linguistic distribution and historical origin. In Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Hong Kong, pp. 152–155.Google Scholar
Ye, Y and Connine, CM (1999) Processing spoken Chinese: the role of tone information. Language and Cognitive Processes 14, 609–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeung, AHL, Baek, H, Takahashi, C, Duncan, J, Benedett, S, Hwang, J and Broselow, E (2019) Pitch range, intensity, and vocal fry in non-native and native English focus intonation. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 36, 060004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, VY and Andruski, JE (2009) A cross-language study of perception of lexical stress in English. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 39, 323–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Hwang et al. supplementary material

Hwang et al. supplementary material

Download Hwang et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.5 MB