Acoustic Characteristics and the Perception of English Voiceless Fricatives - A Preliminary Study on Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

This study focuses on Chinese EFL learners` perception of English voiceless fricatives and examines some of the acoustic characteristics of voiceless fricatives to investigate the role of acoustic characteristics in fricative perception. Praat was used for intensity and noise duration analyses, Matlab was used for spectral peak location analysis and SPSS was applied to conduct correlation and regression analyses. The results showed that among four voiceless fricatives, the voiceless labiodental fricative was the most difficult for Chinese EFL learners to perceive. At the same time, the correlational and regression analyses results showed that fricative intensity and noise duration have an influence on learners` perception of voiceless fricatives while spectral peak location did not. Further study on other acoustic characteristics and fricatives in other syllable positions is suggested.