VOT productions of word-initial stops in Mandarin and English: A cross-language study

Voice Onset Time (VOT) is considered as one of the best methods for examining the timing of voicing in stop consonants and has been applied in the study of many languages. The present study is designed to examine VOT production for phonetically voiceless stops in Mandarin and English by native Chinese speakers. Thirty-six Taiwanese Chinese speakers recruited from National Cheng Kung University participated in this study. The results indicate the following. 1) Based on the three universal categories proposed by Lisker and Abramson (1964), for phonetically voiceless stops, Mandarin and English occupy the same place along the VOT continuum. 2) The mean VOT value for the apical stop /t/ is slightly lower than the mean value for the labial stop /p/. This does not conform to the general consensus, which states that the further back the place of articulation the longer the VOT. Very similar findings were also observed in previous studies. 3) The difference between the mean VOT values of the English /p/ and /t/ produced by Chinese speakers was subtle, while it reached significance for native English speakers. This suggests that a first language could be a crucial factor in L2 production. Future studies might examine variations in L2 production both for the same persons over time and for different speakers.