Perception of English lexical stress in different intonational contexts by Mandarin listeners

Abstract

The present study seeks to elucidate the nature of first language transfer effects on the perception of English lexical stress in different intonational contexts. Pitch (F0) is one of the acoustic cues to lexical stress in English, but crucially, pitch can only serve as a cue to stress when interpreted within the intonation system of English. In contrast, Mandarin is a tonal language where pitch carries greater functional weight for signaling lexical contrasts. Associating pitch to lexical contrasts, Mandarin listeners might therefore assume a one-to-one relationship between pitch and lexical stress in English. To examine whether Mandarin learners of English make this assumption, the current study tested their stress perception in four different intonations: H*L-L%, L*H-H%, H*H-H%, and L*L-L%, where F0 cues to stress were realized differently in each intonation. The results of the stress identification task showed that Mandarin listeners falsely associated higher F0 with stress and lower F0 with the absence of it, and their performance did not improve as they became increasingly proficient in English. The findings provide corroborating evidence for the Cue-Weighting Transfer Hypothesis by showing that the use of a suprasegmental cue can transfer from one phonological category (tones) to another (stress).