An Acoustic and Perceptive Analysis of Postvocalic /l/ in Mandarin Chinese Learners of German

Mandarin Chinese does not allow consonant finals except /n/ and /ng/. This raises questions concerning how well Mandarin speakers learning German can produce a clear /l/ at syllable final positions. This study investigates 490 German speech tokens with embedded postvocalic /l/ produced by 12 Mandarin speakers from 3 different levels and 2 native German speakers. Acoustic analyses indicate that /l/ productions of Mandarin speakers are darker than those of native German speakers. No relationship could be found between darkness of /l/ and proficiency levels. The data reveal that preceding back vowels favor dark realization and vocalization of /l/. A perception test with 10 native German speakers of the produced tokens suggests that dark realization of /l/ contributes to foreign accent. The results help to shed some light on L1 and L2 contrast, and give some implications for L2 acquisition.