Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Rhythm By Russian and Japanese Learners

Abstract

For Chinese as the second language (CSL) learners with different mother tongues (L1), the developments of their speech rhythm received little attention. Based on the interval-based acoustic rhythm metrics, we compared the speech productions of L2 Mandarin by 15 Japanese and 15 Russian learners with different proficiency level. The data included 103 sentences in read speech by each speaker (3605 sentences in total). Preliminary results showed: a.)During the progress from beginners toward intermediate level, the durational variability decreased in both groups of learners, which indicated acquisition of L2 Mandarin rhythm followed similar developmental paths from more stress-timed toward more syllable-timed; b.)During the progress from intermediate toward advanced level, Russian learners kept kind of stress-timed rhythm, Japanese learners appeared mora-timed rhythm, it indicated the transfer effects were influential at this learning stages.