Mandarin Chinese Speakers’ Production of English Vowel Duration as a Function of Coda Voicing and Syllable Number

Abstract

The current study compared native English-speaking adults’ and native Mandarin-speaking adults’ ability to produce context-specific vowel duration differences under the assumption that variability is higher in non-native language learners’ production. A total of twenty native Mandarin and English speakers produced real English words in a frame sentence multiple times. The mean vowel and consonant closure duration and vowel duration variability were analyzed. The results were that Mandarin Chinese speakers produced considerably smaller contrasts but greater temporal variability than English speakers in their production of individual words. The results indicated that the phonological knowledge of L1 is likely to interfere with the temporal patterns of L2 production.