The Perception of Lexical Tones and Tone Sandhi in L2: Success or Failure?

In the current study, we explore the issues of the acquisition of lexical tones and the acquisition of tonal phonological rules by means of categorical perception experiments with advanced L2 learners of Mandarin whose native language is Dutch. By comparing their performance with native Mandarin listeners and native Dutch listeners, we found that advanced L2 learners may build up native-like representations of lexical tones, and show nativelike perception of tone sequences vis-a-vis the tone sandhi rule of Mandarin. However, learners only succeed if the task is simple; when it becomes more complicated, they fail to approach native-like perception, and even lose their original sensitivity to the subtle acoustical differences of pitch change.