Context effects on second-language learning of tonal contrasts

Abstract

Studies of lexical tone learning generally focus on monosyllabic contexts, while reports of phonetic learning benefits associated with input variability are based largely on experienced learners. This study trained inexperienced learners on Mandarin tonal contrasts to test two hypotheses regarding the influence of context and variability on tone learning. The first hypothesis was that increased phonetic variability of tones in disyllabic contexts makes initial tone learning more challenging in disyllabic than monosyllabic words. The second hypothesis was that the learnability of a given tone varies across contexts due to differences in tonal variability. Results of a word learning experiment supported both hypotheses: tones were acquired less successfully in disyllables than in monosyllables, and the relative difficulty of disyllables was closely related to contextual tonal variability. These results indicate limited relevance of monosyllable-based data on Mandarin learning for the disyllabic majority of the Mandarin lexicon. Furthermore, in the short term, variability can diminish learning; its effects are not necessarily beneficial but dependent on acquisition stage and other learner characteristics. These findings thus highlight the importance of considering contextual variability and the interaction between variability and type of learner in the design, interpretation, and application of research on phonetic learning.

Hearing and Seeing Tone Through Color: An Efficacy Study of Web‐Based, Multimodal Chinese Tone Perception Training

“…Consistent with previous research (Bowles et al., ; Chandrasekaran et al., ; Chang & Bowles, ; Liu et al., ; Perrachione et al., ; Showalter & Hayes‐Harb, ; Wang et al., ; Wong & Perrachione, ), this study showed that training of any type substantially benefited L2 learners’ ability to perceive Mandarin tones. Participants in the experimental groups improved an average of 16% ( SD = 18%) to 17% ( SD = 21%) on trained syllables (item learning) and an average of 12% ( SD = 21%) to 10% ( SD = 23%) on untrained syllables (system learning), as summarized in Tables and .…”

“…Despite the challenge posed by Mandarin tones, a plethora of perception studies has shown that speakers of nontonal languages can and do learn to perceive tones in a relatively short period of time (Chang & Bowles, ; Lee, Tao, & Bond, ; Liu et al., ; Shi, ; Showalter & Hayes‐Harb, ; Wang, Spence, Jongman, & Sereno, ; Yang, ). In Wang et al.’s () study, eight participants, who were also enrolled in a second‐year Chinese course at the time of the experiment, increased tone identification accuracy by an average of 21% through eight training sessions over a 2‐week period.…”

Talker and Acoustic Variability in Learning to Produce Nonnative Sounds: Evidence from Articulatory Training

“…Nevertheless, training‐related improvements in vowel production were slightly higher (although only with marginal significance) in the single‐talker group (24%) than in the multiple‐talker group (18%). Given our results, greater benefits of low‐variability training previously reported for perception in novice speakers (Chang & Bowles, ; Kingston, ) and for difficult L2 sounds (Wade et al., ) could be attributed to less variability in talker‐specific cues rather than to a decrease in sound‐specific acoustic variation. However, the results reported by Chang and Bowles suggest that a decrease in variability in sound‐specific cues (e.g., pitch contour for tones) might also contribute to better perception learning.…”

Do Explicit Instruction and High Variability Phonetic Training Improve Nonnative Speakers’ Mandarin Tone Productions?

“…An explicit instruction approach combined with an adaptive and engaging training paradigm (e.g., Shih et al., ; Wiener, Murphy, et al., ) could therefore initially deliver low variability, single‐speaker input followed by a gradual introduction of high variability, multispeaker speech involving Tone 1 and Tone 4 exemplars before introducing Tone 2 and Tone 3 exemplars. Future research may explore how steadily introducing more variable phonetic input over time affects L2 learners’ productions—including productions in running speech (see Tseng, ; Tseng et al., )—and to what degree tone productions improve given multisyllabic training (Chang & Bowles, ).…”

“…The present study advances previous L2 Mandarin speech production research in two ways. First, we acknowledge that evidence is dependent upon a list of learner and experimental conditions, including learners' individual aptitude, language background, experimental paradigms, training and testing materials, instructional techniques, use of feedback, and learning contexts, among other variables (e.g., Chang & Bowles, 2015;Faretta-Stutenberg & Morgan-Short, 2018;Hao & de Jong, 2016;Ke, 1998;Kingston, 2003;Kissling, 2013;Mok et al, 2018;Piske, MacKay, & Flege, 2001;Wiener, 2020). For example, Perrachione et al (2011) demonstrated that for L1 English speakers learning to categorize L2 Mandarin tones, HVPT (i.e., speech from four talkers) facilitated tone learning but only for those participants with strong pitch perception abilities.…”