Acoustical Studies of Mandarin Vowels and Tones

1977 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
Harold Clumeck ◽  
John Marshall Howie
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Vowels

Second Language Perception of Mandarin Vowels and Tones

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-Chen Hao
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Relative Difficulty ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Tonal Language ◽  
Naive Group ◽  
Beginning Learners ◽  
Mandarin Vowels

This study examines the discrimination of Mandarin vowels and tones by native English speakers with varying amounts of Mandarin experience, aiming to investigate the relative difficulty of these two types of sounds for English speakers at different learning stages, and the source of their difficulty. Seventeen advanced learners of Mandarin (Ex group), eighteen beginning learners (InEx group), and eighteen English speakers naïve to Mandarin (Naïve group) participated in an AXB discrimination task. The stimuli were two Mandarin vowel contrasts, /li–ly/ and /lu–ly/, and two tonal contrasts, T1–T4 and T2–T3. The predicted difficulty for each contrast was hypothesized based on the assimilation of these sounds to English reported in previous work. The results showed that the Naïve group was more accurate with vowel contrasts than with tones, suggesting that non-tonal language speakers without any Mandarin training are less sensitive to tonal distinction than to vowels. The two learner groups, on the other hand, were highly accurate with all contrasts except for the T2–T3 pair, and achieved significantly higher accuracy than the Naïve group on /li–ly/ and T1–T4. This lends support to the view that experience in Mandarin improves English speakers’ sensitivity to tonal distinction, helping them discriminate some tones as accurately as vowels. However, all three groups achieved low accuracy in discriminating T2 and T3, suggesting that this contrast may be inherently difficult and resistant to improvement. This study shows that various factors in addition to the native language experience may affect the perception of non-native vowels and tones.

scholarly journals The Effects of Intrinsic Acoustic Cues on Categorical Perception in Children with Cochlear Implants

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Kejuan Cheng ◽  
Xiaoxiang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Intrinsic Cues ◽  
Boundary Width ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
Mandarin Vowels ◽  
Impaired Children

Many previous studies researched the influence of external cues on speech perception, yet little is known pertaining to the role of intrinsic cues in categorical perception of Mandarin vowels and tones by children with cochlear implants (CI). This study investigated the effects of intrinsic acoustic cues on categorical perception in children with CIs, compared to normal-hearing (NH) children. Categorical perception experiment paradigm was applied to evaluate their identification and discrimination abilities in perceiving /i/-/u/ with static intrinsic formants and Tone 1 (T1)-Tone 2 (T2) with dynamic intrinsic fundamental frequency (F0) contours. Results for the NH group showed that vowel continuum of /i/-/u/ was less categorically perceived than T1-T2 continuum with significantly wider boundary width and less alignment between the discrimination peak and the boundary position. However, a different categorical perception pattern was depicted for the CI group. Specifically, the CI group exhibited less categoricalness in both /i/-/u/ and T1-T2. It suggested that the effects of intrinsic acoustic cues on categorical perception was proved for the normal-hearing children, while not for the hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants. In conclusion, acoustically dynamic cues can facilitate categorical perception of speech in NH children, whereas this effect will be inhibited by difficulties in processing spectral F0 information as in the CI users.

Effects of preceding vocabulary context on the perception of Mandarin vowels

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xunan Huang ◽  
Caicai Zhang ◽  
Fei Chen ◽  
Jonathan Sieg ◽  
Lan Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Vowels

Acoustic and kinematic analyses of Mandarin vowels in speakers with hearing impairment

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 622-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peiyun Xue ◽  
Xueying Zhang ◽  
Jing Bai ◽  
ZizhongJohn Wang
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Kinematic Analyses ◽  
Mandarin Vowels

An MRI-based acoustic study of Mandarin vowels

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuguang Wang ◽  
Jianwu Dang ◽  
Xi Chen ◽  
Jianguo Wei ◽  
Hongcui Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Study ◽  
Mandarin Vowels

Acoustical Studies of Mandarin Vowels and Tones

1977 ◽  
Vol 61 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 301
Author(s):  
William S. Y. Wang ◽  
John Marshall Howie
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Vowels

Phonetic enhancement of Mandarin vowels and tones: Infant-directed speech and Lombard speech

2017 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Tang ◽  
Nan Xu Rattanasone ◽  
Ivan Yuen ◽  
Katherine Demuth
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Vowels
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