Cross-Language Influence on the Production of Mandarin /f/ and /x/ and Taiwanese /h/ by Native Speakers of Taiwanese Amoy

Abstract

The present study examines the patterns of interference between a first (here, Amoy) and second language (here, Mandarin) by comparing the production of a Mandarin phone [f] (a ‘new’ phone) with another Mandarin phone [x] (which is ‘similar’ to an Amoy phone [h]) by three groups of native Amoy subjects differentiated by proficiency in Mandarin. Their Mandarin production was also compared to that of Mandarin monolinguals. The spectrum of each consonant was analyzed to show the frequency range and energy of the fricative. In general, native Amoy speakers interpreted Mandarin /f/ and /x/ in terms of their first language phones [h^w] and [h], but showed different patterns of interference for different proficiency levels. The least proficient simply substituted the Amoy phones for the Mandarin. More proficient speakers could approximate the Mandarin monolingual phonetic norm for the ‘new’ phone [f] more accurately than for the ‘similar’ phone [x]. The most proficient showed little Amoy-to-Mandarin interference on even the ‘similar’ phone [x]. On the other hand, the most proficient showed some interference from Mandarin /x/ on their Amoy production.

Prosodic Realization of Focus in Bilingual Production of Southern Min and Mandarin

“…There was no effect of L2 Mandarin prosody on the production of L1 Southern Min prosody production in any of the three age groups. This differs from previous findings that, at the segmental level, there are mutual effects of L1 and L2 sound systems in societal bilinguals in vowel (Guion, 2003) and consonant (Peng, 1993) production. The lack of L2-to-L1 impact in the present study is especially notable for the younger speakers, whose Mandarin use was as high as 63% on average (table 1) and who showed clear PFC in their Mandarin.…”

“…However, the factors found to be relevant to immigrant bilinguals have also been confirmed in studies of societal bilinguals, namely those who speak two languages that are both required and used in the community or society (Peng, 1993;Guion et al, 2000a;Guion, 2003). AOL has been found to be one of the most important factors to affect L2 speech production (Piske et al, 2001).…”

“…The Quichua vowels were produced higher by bilinguals who had acquired Spanish vowels than those who had not. In the societal bilingualism of Southern Min and Mandarin, Peng (1993) found that the Mandarin production of /f/ and /x/ varied in the spectrum from native-like Mandarin /f/ and /x/ to Southern Min /h w / and /h/ with a positive relation to the degree of Mandarin proficiency. Subjects with the highest proficiency in Mandarin showed some interference from Mandarin [x] on their Southern Min production.…”

“…These two studies therefore indicate that the amount of L1 use affects the degree of foreign accent in L2: the greater the L1 use, the greater the negative effect on L2 production. There is also evidence of influences of L2 on L1 in social bilinguals: vowel production is linked to AOL (Guion, 2003) and consonant production is linked to L2 proficiency (Peng, 1993). In Quichua-Spanish societal bilingualism, Guion (2003) found that simultaneous bilinguals were able to produce monolingual-like vowels in both languages, and that early and some mid-bilinguals were able to produce native-like L2 Spanish vowels while late bilinguals were not.…”

The Vowel Systems of Quichua-Spanish Bilinguals

“…The VOTs of stops were shorter for both languages after several months in Brazil than after several months in the US. Finally, Peng [1993] investigated the production of fricatives by Taiwanese Amoy learners of Mandarin and found that the Amoy [h] of proficient Mandarin speakers showed influence from Mandarin [x].…”