Perception and production of English vowels by native speakers of Mandarin

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the identification of English vowels by 48 Mandarin ESL speakers and their production of these same vowels, and how factors of AoA, LoR, general and English education, and language spoken at work and home influence that relation. The Mandarin ESL speakers produced eight repetitions of the following words, heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood, who’d, hud, and heard, and then identified tokens of each of these words produced by two native speakers of Greater Metropolitan New York City English. Native speakers of American English identified the productions of the Mandarin ESL speakers to provide a measure of their ability to produce these vowels. We hypothesize that general and English educational background and language use influence the L2 English speakers’ perception and production of English vowels, and that the more accurately the L2 listener distinguishes a vowel contrast, the more distinctly he/she produces that contrast.