Perception of non-native tonal contrasts: Effects of native phonological and phonetic influences

This study examined the perception of Mandarin tones by two groups of Cantonese and Japanese (naïve) listeners. An identification task was given and their responses were analyzed in terms of A-prime scores and tonal errors. The results indicated that the performance of the Cantonese listeners was compatible with that of the Japanese listeners in A-prime scores and tonal errors. The listeners’ tonal errors also showed that both the listener groups made considerable amount of errors for the T1-T4 and T2-T3 pairs, but the Cantonese listeners made more noticeable errors for the T1-T4 and T2-T3 pairs than did the Japanese listeners. The discrepancies in the performance between the two listener groups could be explained in the framework of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM: Best, 1994, 1995). The findings imply that linguistic experience of tones does not necessarily facilitate the perception of nonnative tones. However, the phonemic status and the phonetic similarities or dissimilarities between the prosodic systems of the target and native languages play a more important role in the perception of non-native tone contrasts. In addition, the results revealed some previously unnoticeable asymmetrical patterns for Mandarin tone perception by non-native listeners. Both the listener groups exhibited great confusion about the tones in the T1-T2, T1-T4, and T2-T3 pairs, but they made apparently fewer errors for the other three pairs of tones, T1-T3, T2-T4, and T3-T4. These imply that non-native tonal perception is also influenced by the phonetic characteristics of target tones.