The effect of language experience on lexical tone perception

Abstract

Language experience has often shown to affect speech perception at segmental levels (Holt, 2010). Whether and how language experience affect perception of suprasegmental elements is often subject to dispute (Xu et al., 2006; Peng, 2016). The current study focused on the identification and discrimination of Mandarin lexical tones by 3 groups of listeners, namely, 15 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (tonal language), 15 native speakers of Lao (tonal language), and 15 native speakers of Uzbek (non-tonal language). We ask (1) whether experience with lexical tones (tonal vs. non-tonal) affects categorical perception of pitch contours; (2) whether differences in native tone inventories (Mandarin vs. Lao) affect pitch perception. Stimuli were 7 monosyllabic snippets resynthesized from a natural Mandarin speech sample. The stimuli represented a physical continuum of pitch contours ranging from a Mandarin level to a Mandarin rising tone. Preliminary results show a strong categorical perception of pitch contours for Mandarin speakers than for Lao and Uzbek speakers, and Lao speakers exhibited stronger categorical perception of pitch contours than Uzbek speakers. The results indicate that lexical tone perception is affected by both the experience with tonal languages and one’s native tone inventory.