Discrimination of Tone Contrasts in Mandarin Disyllables by Naïve American English Listeners

<p>The present study examined the perception of Mandarin disyllabic tones by inexperienced American English speakers. Participants heard two naturally-produced Mandarin disyllables, and indicated if the two were the same or different. A small native Mandarin-speaking control group participated as well. All 21 possible Mandarin contrasts where the initial syllable varied but the final syllable stayed the same were tested. Acoustic analysis was performed on the stimuli under study. Mandarin subjects scored at ceiling on all contrasts. American English subjects performed poorly on contrasts where the difference in mean F0 was small, or where the difference in the offset F0 of the first syllable was small. They also performed poorly when the difference in slope of the final syllable was small. Previous research has proposed that American English listeners attend primarily to the height difference between two tone stimuli, but here they attended to height in the first syllable and contour in the second syllable.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Berkowitz, Shari Salzhauer

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Winifred Strange

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Valerie Shafer
• Brett Martin

• Speech and Hearing Science

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1767

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-2800