Vowel Space in Mandarin-Accented English

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19502292
AutoresMichael P Robb (0000-0003-2529-0510), Yang Chen (0000-0001-5943-3247)
Año2008
Volumen11
Número3
Páginas175-188
Fecha de publicación2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAsia Pacific Journal of Speech Language and Hearing (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1361-3286 • E-ISSN: 2058-0967
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1179/136132808805297179
OpenAlexW2090246781
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas33

The purpose of this study was to expand on the earlier work of Chen et al. (2001a) by comparing the acoustic vowel spaces for speakers of Mandarin-accented English (MAE) and speakers of American English (AE). Three vowels that are phonetically equivalent in both the Mandarin and English languages (/i, u, /) and three AE vowels not found in the Mandarin language (/I, , /) were acoustically measured for the first formant (F1) and second formant (F2) frequencies. On the basis of F1 versus F2 plots, estimates of acoustic vowel space were made for MAE and AE speakers. It was hypothesized that AE and MAE speakers would show no differences in vowel space area for production of equivalent vowels; however, vowel space area would differ significantly for production of nonequivalent vowels. Results obtained for speakers of MAE indicated a significantly smaller vowel space area for the vowels /i, u, / compared to AE speakers. On the other hand, the vowels /I, , /were produced by the MAE speakers with a significantly larger vowel space area compared to the AE speakers. The combined results suggest a generalized lack of acoustic differentiation between the vowels /i, u, / compared to /I, , / as produced by speakers articulaof MAE. The reason for this pattern appears to result from L1 influencing the establishment of /I, , / in the MAE inventory

Acoustic space · Acoustic wave · Acoustics · Formant · Linguistics · Mandarin Chinese · Mid vowel · Physics · Relative articulation · Speech recognition · Vowel · Computer Science · Mathematics · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Speech and Audio Processing · Speech Recognition and Synthesis