The Phonetic Space of Phonological Categories in Heritage Speakers of

Mandarin

The 44th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society24 April 2008

Charles B. Chang, Erin Haynes, Russell Rhodes, and Yao Yao

University of California, Berkeleycbchang@berkeley.edu, hayneser@berkeley.edu,

russell_rhodes@berkeley.edu, yaoyao@berkeley.edu

Outline

1. Background

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

3

Background

This study compares production of both Mandarin and English in heritage speakers of Mandarin to that of native Mandarin speakers and that of native English speakers learning Mandarin as a foreign language.

Heritage speakers of Mandarin (narrow definition):

people who have had exposure to Mandarin in their family but have shifted to primarily using English

4

Background

A few studies have examined the phonological competence of heritage speakers: Au et al. (2002) and Knightly et al. (2003):

heritage speakers of Spanish have a phonological advantage over late learners (VOT, degree of lenition, and accent ratings).

Oh et al. (2002, 2003): heritage speakers of Korean exhibit rather native-like production (VOT and accent ratings).

Godson (2003): heritage speakers of Armenian show influence in their Armenian vowels from English, but only for Armenian vowels close to English vowels.

5

Research Questions

Do heritage speakers maintain contrasts in both the heritage language and the dominant language? If so, do they maintain the contrasts to the same degree as native speakers?

Do heritage speakers maintain contrasts between segments of the heritage language and similar segments of the dominant language?

Previous Findings

In previous work connected with the current study (Chang et al. 2008), we investigated heritage speakers’ fricative production, and found that Native speakers and late learners most

likely collapse /ʃ/ and /ʂ/, while heritage speakers tend to keep the two sounds apart.

There is a correspondence in heritage speakers between linguistic performance and amount of exposure to the heritage language.

Current Study

In this study, we focus on back vowels and stop consonants. Experiment 1: Five vowels are

investigated. English /u/, English /o(w)/, Mandarin /u/, Mandarin /o(w)/, and Mandarin /y/.

Experiment 2: Four stop categories. English voiceless (aspirated) stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) and voiced stops (/b/, /d/, /g/); Mandarin aspirated stops (/ph/, /th/, /kh/) and unaspirated ones (/p/, /t/, /k/)

Outline

1. Background and research questions

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

9

Methods

Participants 18 speakers total

5 native speakers of Mandarin 8 heritage speakers of Mandarin 5 late learners of Mandarin

Questionnaire Speakers’ status determined based on a

language background questionnaire Recordings

All items recorded in a sound-proof booth (at 48 kHz, 16 bps)

Pre-amp????, AKG C420 head-mounted condenser microphone

10

Methods

Stimuli Exp 1:

English: 11 /CuC/ words. 10 /Co(w)C/ words Mandarin: 10 /Cu/ words. 7 /Co(w)/ words. 3 /Cy/ words.

Exp 2 English: 12 stop-initial CVC words. 2 per stop category. Mandarin: 12 stop-initial words. 2 per stop category.

Both experiments Segmental context is matched across language if

possible. Falling tones are chosen for Mandarin words if possible. E.g. tote / tòu 透

11

Methods

Stimuli (cont’d) Presentation of stimuli

words read off of index cards English words written in English orthography Mandarin words written in Mandarin orthography

(traditional and simplified characters) and romanization (pinyin and BoPoMoFo)

all words written and read in isolation words read in 8 blocks

4 Mandarin blocks 4 English blocks block consisted of reading all of the words from a

given language words randomized before each block

12

Methods

Acoustic measurements All measurements were performed in Praat

(Boersma & Weenink 2008). In Experiment 1, average values of F1, F2,

and F3 were measured over the whole duration of the vowel.

In Experiment 2, VOT values were measured for word-initial stops.

Analysis of data Statistical analysis was performed using the

Wilcoxon matched pairs signed-rank test.

Outline

1. Background and research questions

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

14

Results

Mean formant values of /u/, by speaker group

**

**

**

**

**

**

**

*

*

**

*

*

**

**

*

*

15

Results

Mean formant values of /ow/, by speaker group

**

**

**

**

**

**

**

*

*

**

*

*

**

**

*

*

16

Results

Distinctions made between fricatives, by speaker: (1-3 = native, 4-9 = heritage, 10-12 = learners)1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1

011

12

/ʂ/-/ʃ/ - - / - + / + / - + - -/ɕ/-/ʃ/ / + / + + + + + + + + +/ʂ/-/ɕ/

+ + + + / + / + + + + +

Outline

1. Background and research questions

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

Discussion

The results of Experiment 1 show that:

Mandarin back vowels are more to the back than English back vowels for all speakers.

In both languages, native Mandarin speakers’ back vowels are more to the back than HL speakers’ and L2 learners.

????HL speakers tend to maintain the largest difference in F2 between English back vowels and Mandarin back vowels.

Discussion

Similar results were found in the fricative experiment. Most native speakers and most late

learners collapse Mandarin /ʂ/ and English /ʃ/.

Most heritage speakers keep /ʂ/ and /ʃ/ apart on one or both spectral measures.

Discussion

The results of Experiment 2 show that: All speakers distinguish voiceless and

voiced stops in English, and aspirated and unaspirated stops in Mandarin.

Most native Mandarin speakers and HL speakers have longer VOT for Mandarin aspirated stops than English voiceless (aspirated) stops.

Less than half of the L2 learners show the same distinction.

Outline

1. Background and research questions

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

Conclusions

Our results suggest that heritage speakers tend to be better at maintaining contrasts between two “similar” categories in two languages.

Two possible explanations: Early exposure to both languages makes

heritage speakers better at hitting the two targets.

Early-acquired categories interact with each other and are dissimilated.

The first hypothesis is more supported by our vowel data and VOT data.

Conclusions

Our results also suggest that there is a correspondence in heritage speakers between linguistic performance and amount of exposure to the heritage language.

native speakers

most advanced heritage speakers

intermediate heritage speakers

late learners

least advanced heritage speakers

24

Thank you!

Acknowledgements:

Sharon InkelasKeith Johnson

all speaker participantsparticipants in a seminar on phonological learning

(UCB, Fall 2007)UC Berkeley Linguistics

25

Selected References

Au, Terry K., Leah M. Knightly, Sun-Ah Jun, and Janet S. Oh. 2002. Overhearing a language during childhood. Psychological Science 13(3): 238-243.

Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2008. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer. http://www.praat.org.

Godson, Linda. 2003. Phonetics of Language Attrition: Vowel Production and Articulatory Setting in the Speech of Western Armenian Heritage Speakers. PhD dissertation, University of California, San Diego.

Knightly, Leah M., Sun-Ah Jun, Janet S. Oh, and Terry K. Au. 2003. Production benefits of childhood overhearing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 114(1): 465-474.

Ladefoged, Peter. 2005. Vowels and Consonants, 2nd edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Oh, Janet S., Terry K. Au, and Sun-Ah Jun. 2002. Benefits of childhood language experience for adult L2 learners’ phonology. In B. Skarabela et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Vol. 2: 464-472. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Oh, Janet, Sun-Ah Jun, Leah Knightly, and Terry Au. 2003. Holding on to childhood language memory. Cognition 86(3): B53-B64.

26

Mean F1 frequency

Results

27

Mean F2 frequency

Results

28

Mean F3 frequency

Results