Perception and production of English voiced fricatives by Mandarin speakers

Abstract

In language transfer, L2 learners have various ways to cope with unfamiliar sounds. However, not all sounds that do not exist in L1 are equally difficult for L2 learners to perceive and produce (Flege et al., 2003; Zsiga, 2012). This thesis intends to explore how mandarin speakers who learn English as the second language perceive and produce English voiced fricatives /v/, /d/, /z/, and /ʒ/. Since sound perception and production are arguably two processes that may not always be consistent with each other (Culicover & Hume, 2010; Zsiga, 2012), various experiments were designed. The perception section contained a discrimination test and an identification test. The production section involved three subsections that recorded the pronunciation of the participants. As English is a mandatory discipline from middle school in Mainland China, the participants performed well in the tests with text, but they did not show great sensitivity to the target sounds when they appeared in unfamiliar situations without the writing form provided. The participants were likely to perceive part of the phoneme among the three aspects of a phoneme—voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation. Voicing seemed a more straightforward characteristic for L2 learners to grasp and the other two aspects might be neglected. By exploring the perception and production of English voiced fricatives by Mandarin speakers, this thesis demonstrates what characteristics Mandarin speakers are more sensitive to, and what substitutions they tend to choose, which is hoped to fill the gap of perception and production of voiced fricatives in literature, and benefit in English teaching.