TY - JOUR
T1 - The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for native speakers of Mandarin
T2 - Production and perception of English word-final voicing contrasts
AU - Hayes-Harb, Rachel
AU - Smith, Bruce L.
AU - Bent, Tessa
AU - Bradlow, Ann R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the University of Utah College of Humanities and the National Institutes of Health (NIH R01 DC005794 to Northwestern University). The authors thank Zachary Rasmussen and Amy Hamilton for their contributions to the research, and the anonymous Journal of Phonetics reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
PY - 2008/10
Y1 - 2008/10
N2 - This study investigated the intelligibility of native and Mandarin-accented English speech for native English and native Mandarin listeners. The word-final voicing contrast was considered (as in minimal pairs such as 'cub' and 'cup') in a forced-choice word identification task. For these particular talkers and listeners, there was evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (i.e., native Mandarin listeners were more accurate than native English listeners at identifying Mandarin-accented English words). However, there was no evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for talkers (i.e., native Mandarin listeners did not find Mandarin-accented English speech more intelligible than native English speech). When listener and talker phonological proficiency (operationalized as accentedness) was taken into account, it was found that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners held only for the low phonological proficiency listeners and low phonological proficiency speech. The intelligibility data were also considered in relation to various temporal-acoustic properties of native English and Mandarin-accented English speech in effort to better understand the properties of speech that may contribute to the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit.
AB - This study investigated the intelligibility of native and Mandarin-accented English speech for native English and native Mandarin listeners. The word-final voicing contrast was considered (as in minimal pairs such as 'cub' and 'cup') in a forced-choice word identification task. For these particular talkers and listeners, there was evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (i.e., native Mandarin listeners were more accurate than native English listeners at identifying Mandarin-accented English words). However, there was no evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for talkers (i.e., native Mandarin listeners did not find Mandarin-accented English speech more intelligible than native English speech). When listener and talker phonological proficiency (operationalized as accentedness) was taken into account, it was found that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners held only for the low phonological proficiency listeners and low phonological proficiency speech. The intelligibility data were also considered in relation to various temporal-acoustic properties of native English and Mandarin-accented English speech in effort to better understand the properties of speech that may contribute to the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=54149084733&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=54149084733&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.wocn.2008.04.002
DO - 10.1016/j.wocn.2008.04.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 19606271
AN - SCOPUS:54149084733
VL - 36
SP - 664
EP - 679
JO - Journal of Phonetics
JF - Journal of Phonetics
SN - 0095-4470
IS - 4
ER -