Effective perceptual training on non-native lexical tone identification for monolingual and bilingual tone language speakers

Abstract

Most languages in the world use lexical tones to contrast word meanings. Acquiring a foreign tonal system is challenging. This study presented two effective high-variability intensive training programs on identification of Cantonese tones, a complex tonal system, for nonnative tone speakers, and explored factors that may affect non-native tone acquisition. Thirty Mandarin-speaking monolinguals and 33 Mandarin-Taiwanese-speaking bilinguals in Taiwan were randomly assigned to two training programs with the same or different tones preceding the target training words in each training block. Before training, learners took a Cantonese tone identification test. Then, they received six 90-minute training sessions in two weeks and redid the Cantonese tone identification test in each session. Twenty Cantonese native speakers in Hong Kong formed the control group and took the same identification test. Before training, the monolinguals performed poorer than the bilinguals. After training, the monolinguals and bilinguals in both training programs identified the six Cantonese tones with comparable results and their overall accuracy did not differ from that of the Cantonese native speakers. The results showed that high-variability intensive training programs that presented contrastive feedback and metalinguistic knowledge on the tones are effective in promoting non-native tone acquisition in speakers of different tone languages.