Cantonese ESL Learners' Pronunciation of English Final Consonants

Chan, Alice Yin Wa

doi:10.1080/07908310608668769

Cited by 19 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…According to previous observations, Cantonese learners of English often delete C-[r] initial clusters or substitute the /r/ as [w], as in producing [pɪnt] for print or [tʃaɪ] for try [10] [11] [12]. Specifically, the alveolar cluster, tr-, is more problematic because in most studies, it is said to be deleted or substituted by [w] just like previous studies.…”

Section: Two Candidate Methodsmentioning

confidence: 72%

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Perceptual category mining in human second language speech perception

Lan

2013

2013 IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing, Communication and Computing (ICSPCC 2013)

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this paper intends to clarify the process of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) predicting the patterns of human categorical speech perception in audio perception of second language (L2) speech signals. The original stage of categorizing acoustic stimuli in the L2 signal often involves assimilation from L1 categories. Whether L1 sounds will assimilate to L2 ones can be assimilated to the L2 category is decided by difference of category distance. This study, with evidence from Cantonese learners' perception of the English trsignal, proposes that a careful mining process to find out the intended assimilating L1 category is necessary. The chosen L1 category should be tested on perceptual similarity to the L2 category in fine-grained phonetic environments, rather than just possible L1 phonological mappings from observed production errors. Two experiments with different L1 assimilating candidates are done using the AX identification and ABX discrimination paradigms. Target trVC syllables are both aligned with twVC, a representative of phonological closeness through contrastive analysis, and with chVC, a representative of perceptually similar candidate which is less mentioned in literature. Results from both identification and discrimination show that accuracy rate for twVC is almost ceiling whereas that of trVC is significantly lower. Results suggest that perceptual distance is better represented by perceptual similarity and such screening process should be applied as a pre-examination procedure instead of choosing L1 assimilator based on phonological similarity.Index Terms-human speech perception, category assimilation, perceptual distance, L2 speech processing.

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Section: Two Candidate Methodsmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…/w/ is considered as a freevariation for /r/ in various studies [10] [13] phonologically. Accordingly, many studies have pinned down /w/ as the phoneme to be assimilating category (e.g., [11] [12]). However, /tʃ/, also produced in Cantonese (as a variant for /ts/) might be another candidate assimilated to /tr/ by Cantonese.…”

Section: Two Candidate Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual category mining in human second language speech perception

Lan

2013

2013 IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing, Communication and Computing (ICSPCC 2013)

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“…All the /u:/ words used contain a preceding /j/, and all the /l/ words contain /ɪ/ as the peak, so strictly speaking the /u:/ and /l/ words are not minimal pairs. However, it has been found that a [u]-like sound is often used by Cantonese ESL learners in producing final /l/ (Chan 2006a), and phonetically /j/ is very similar to /ɪ/, so the /u:/ words were contrasted with the /l/ words in the study.…”

Section: Consonantsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…As far as the learning of English consonants is concerned, it has often been documented that English consonants non-existent in Cantonese, such as /θ/, /z/, /r/, are difficult for Cantonese ESL learners to produce, and that similar Cantonese sounds, such as /f/, /s/ and /w/, respectively, are often used as substitutes (e.g., Bolton and Kwok 1990;Chan 2006aChan , 2006bChan and Li 2000;Hung 2000;Kenworthy 1987;Stibbard 2004). In accordance with earlier Second Language Acquisition (SLA) models such as the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) (Lado 1957), differences between the native and target languages have often been regarded as the source of pronunciation difficulties (Chan 2010).…”

Section: Speech Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In final position, /l/ is nonexistent in Cantonese. The closest correlate is often a vocalized [u:]-like sound (Chan 2006a;Hung 2000), so a comparison between the two was impossible to make. As such, the relationship between perceived similarity and speech production with regard to this sound could not be ascertained.…”

Section: Relationship Between L2 Speech Perception and L2 Speech Prodmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The perception and production of English speech sounds by Cantonese ESL learners in Hong Kong

Chan¹

2014

Linguistics

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This article discusses the perception and production of English speech sounds by Cantonese ESL learners in Hong Kong and examines the validity of the claims of the Speech Learning Model for explaining second language speech production by Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners. Forty university English majors participated in the study, which included two L2 speech perception tasks, two L1 L2 speech perception tasks, and three L2 speech production tasks. It is found that although the perceived similarity between the L1 and the L2 is inversely related to L2 speech perception, such an inverse relationship between perceived L1 L2 similarity and L2 speech production is not so straightforward and is often mediated by other widespread phonological phenomena such as final obstruent devoicing and final lateral vocalization. Speech perception and speech production, thus, do not bear a strict one-to-one relation, and correct discernment of a target sound does not necessarily lead to correct production. The predictions of the SLM regarding speech production do not seem to be entirely borne out. Further research is needed to investigate the perceptual and production abilities of ESL learners of other linguistic backgrounds.

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Advanced Cantonese ESL learners' production of English speech sounds: Problems and strategies

Chan

2010

System

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Cantonese ESL Learners' Pronunciation of English Final Consonants

Cited by 19 publications

References 14 publications

Perceptual category mining in human second language speech perception

Perceptual category mining in human second language speech perception

The perception and production of English speech sounds by Cantonese ESL learners in Hong Kong

Advanced Cantonese ESL learners' production of English speech sounds: Problems and strategies

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