Perception of Mandarin Chinese tone 2/tone 3 and the role of creaky voice.

Abstract

Previous research has established that among the four tones of Mandarin Chinese, tone 2 and tone 3 are very similar in their pitch contour shapes and are, thus, difficult to distinguish by native and nonnative listeners. On the other hand, creaky voice has been reported to be associated with tone 3 production among native speakers. However, the role of creaky voice in the perception of tone 3 has yet to be studied systematically. This study aims to investigate (1) the extent to which creaky voice is present in tone 3 production by native speakers; (2) the perceptual boundary between tone 2 and tone 3 among native and non-native speakers; and (3) the effect of creaky phonation on this perceptual boundary. Thirty native Chinese speakers and 30 native speakers of American English who are learning Chinese will participate in this study. Tone stimuli with and without creaky voice will be presented auditorily for tonal identification. The data obtained will be analyzed to examine the effect of creaky voice in the identification of tone 3 among these two groups of speakers. In addition, the native production of tone 3 will be examined for the presence of creaky voice.