L1 Influence on Stop Consonant Production: A Case Study of Malaysian Mandarin-English Bilinguals

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although English plays an important role in the linguistic repertoire of Malaysian speakers, there have been limited acoustic studies on the phonological aspect of English spoken in Malaysia. This study investigates the phonetic variation of the English initial stop consonants produced by 10 Mandarin–English bilinguals by measuring voice onset time (VOT) and closure duration as the primary acoustic cues. The effects of place of articulation are also examined. The results are then compared with Mandarin (ChM) and British English (BrE). Findings show phonetic variation in Chinese-influenced English (ChE) from both ChM and BrE with a tendency of assimilation towards BrE. The intermediate data distribution of VOT in ChE also shows weaker voicing contrast. While previous studies suggest closure duration as a secondary cue for the acquisition of stop consonants, it seems to carry an equivalent weight in the voicing distinction of ChM. However, ChE shows greater similarity to BrE with closure duration playing less role in voicing distinction. While bidirectional influence of both first language and BrE in the phonetic realisation of initial stop consonants among Mandarin–English bilinguals is observed, language-specific and social factors may set Malaysian Mandarin–English bilinguals apart due to the complex linguistic settings in multilingual Malaysia.