Prosodic perception and production of English- and Chinese-native speakers.

Abstract

Our previous studies have shown that English-native adult speakers demonstrated categorical perception in tonal identification of speech and nonspeech sounds as typically as Chinese-native adult speakers. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether prosodic perception of English speech sounds was different between English- and Chinese-native listeners. F0 contour was manipulated from falling to rising patterns for the target word embedded in a short sentence. Listener’s task was to identify the prosody of each sentence, either question or statement. Preliminary results suggested that both groups of listeners showed typical categorical perception, while the two groups had significant difference in categorical boundary. The difference in categorical boundary for prosodic perception between the two groups of listeners was similar to our previous findings in tonal perception, likely due to the difference in the listener’s language background. English sentences with statement and question will be recorded for the two groups of listeners. The relationship between prosodic perception and perception will be discussed. [Work supported by The University of Texas at Austin, Undergraduate Research Fellowship.]