The interactions of L1 and L2 tonal systems in Mandarin-Cantonese late bilinguals = 普通話-廣東話成年雙語者一語二語聲調系統的相互作用
Project title
The interactions of L1 and L2 tonal systems in Mandarin-Cantonese late bilinguals = 普通話-廣東話成年雙語者一語二語聲調系統的相互作用
Principal Investigator
Grant Awarding Body
Research Grants Council
Grant Type
Faculty Development Scheme
Project Code
UGC/FDS15/H15/22
Amount awarded
HK$835,558
Funding Year
2022-2023
Duration of the Project
24 months
Status
On-going
Abstract
Nowadays an increasing number of people learn a second language (L2); however, accents are commonly found among late L2 learners, even after years of extensive exposure to the L2. Although there may be different accent sources in an L2, non-nativelikeness in L2 pronunciation is generally regarded as having been influenced from the learner’s first language (L1). At the same time, during the process of L2 acquisition, the learner’s L1 may also exhibit alteration due to influence from the L2, which is defined as L1 attrition. Research into L1 attrition and L2 attainment, however, has gone in two separate directions in terms of bilingual language development. Consequently, L1 and L2 interactions remain poorly understood.
Current speech learning models (e.g., Flege & Bohn, 2021) generally suggest a common phonetic/phonological space for L1 and L2 in the bilingual speaker’s mental representation, and they thus assume influences from the L1 to the L2. While some research points to the possibility of bidirectional influences between the L1 and L2 segments, it remains to be explored whether the tonal systems also show interactions of the L1 and L2. This proposed study attempts to associate both L1 attrition and L2 attainment and aims to closely investigate the possible interactions of the L1 and L2 tonal systems in Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals. As two closely related Chinese dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese are tonal languages, and the differences in their tonal systems provide a natural environment for testing the hypotheses of speech learning models.
To fill the gaps in previous research, this proposed study has four aims: 1) to systematically examine the bidirectional influences between an L1 and an L2 in terms of the tonal system; 2) to test whether Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals show attrition of the L1 in tone production and perception and whether they can have comparable performance with native speakers in L2 tone production and perception; 3) to combine both acoustic and perceptual measurements for the analysis of read speech and spontaneous speech, which is our methodological contribution; and 4) to probe potential non-linguistic factors that may foster phonetic attrition of a native language and phonetic acquisition of a target language. This study will recruit immigrants who spoke Mandarin as the only Chinese dialect before arriving in Hong Kong and speak fluent Cantonese. Another two groups of participants will include native Mandarin speakers with limited exposure to other Chinese dialects and native Cantonese speakers, both of whom will serve as this study’s control groups. The participants will perform various tasks in two experiments. The first experiment is the production of read and spontaneous speech, the data of which will be assessed acoustically and perceptually. For the perception experiment of lexical tones, the participants will be required to complete an identification task and a same-different discrimination task.
As the first attempt to systematically investigate the interactions of the L1 and L2 tonal systems in bilinguals, this study will provide evidence for or against the postulates of current speech learning models and advance our theoretical knowledge of L1 and L2 interactions. The results from this proposed research will also inform language teachers of the particularly challenging Cantonese tones for Mandarin-speaking learners, allowing the teachers to revise their syllabi and pedagogies when they are teaching Mandarin-speaking learners of Cantonese. Furthermore, this research will provide immediate research opportunities to undergraduate students, better preparing them for their future academic and career development.
Current speech learning models (e.g., Flege & Bohn, 2021) generally suggest a common phonetic/phonological space for L1 and L2 in the bilingual speaker’s mental representation, and they thus assume influences from the L1 to the L2. While some research points to the possibility of bidirectional influences between the L1 and L2 segments, it remains to be explored whether the tonal systems also show interactions of the L1 and L2. This proposed study attempts to associate both L1 attrition and L2 attainment and aims to closely investigate the possible interactions of the L1 and L2 tonal systems in Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals. As two closely related Chinese dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese are tonal languages, and the differences in their tonal systems provide a natural environment for testing the hypotheses of speech learning models.
To fill the gaps in previous research, this proposed study has four aims: 1) to systematically examine the bidirectional influences between an L1 and an L2 in terms of the tonal system; 2) to test whether Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals show attrition of the L1 in tone production and perception and whether they can have comparable performance with native speakers in L2 tone production and perception; 3) to combine both acoustic and perceptual measurements for the analysis of read speech and spontaneous speech, which is our methodological contribution; and 4) to probe potential non-linguistic factors that may foster phonetic attrition of a native language and phonetic acquisition of a target language. This study will recruit immigrants who spoke Mandarin as the only Chinese dialect before arriving in Hong Kong and speak fluent Cantonese. Another two groups of participants will include native Mandarin speakers with limited exposure to other Chinese dialects and native Cantonese speakers, both of whom will serve as this study’s control groups. The participants will perform various tasks in two experiments. The first experiment is the production of read and spontaneous speech, the data of which will be assessed acoustically and perceptually. For the perception experiment of lexical tones, the participants will be required to complete an identification task and a same-different discrimination task.
As the first attempt to systematically investigate the interactions of the L1 and L2 tonal systems in bilinguals, this study will provide evidence for or against the postulates of current speech learning models and advance our theoretical knowledge of L1 and L2 interactions. The results from this proposed research will also inform language teachers of the particularly challenging Cantonese tones for Mandarin-speaking learners, allowing the teachers to revise their syllabi and pedagogies when they are teaching Mandarin-speaking learners of Cantonese. Furthermore, this research will provide immediate research opportunities to undergraduate students, better preparing them for their future academic and career development.