Cantonese Tones Research Articles

Tone matters for Cantonese-English bilingual children's English word reading development: A unified model of phonological transfer.

Languages differ considerably in how they use prosodic features, or variations in pitch, duration, and intensity, to distinguish one word from another. Prosodic features include lexical tone in Chinese and lexical stress in English. Recent cross-sectional studies show a surprising result that Mandarin Chinese tone sensitivity is related to Mandarin-English bilingual children's English word reading. This study explores the mechanism underlying this relation by testing two explanations of these effects: the prosodic hypothesis and segmental phonological awareness transfer. We administered multiple measures of Cantonese tone sensitivity, English stress sensitivity, segmental phonological awareness in Cantonese and English, nonverbal ability, and English word reading to 123 Cantonese-English bilingual children ages 7 and 8years. Structural equation modeling revealed a longitudinal prediction of Cantonese tone sensitivity to English word reading between 8 and 9years of age. This relation was realized through two parallel routes. In one, Cantonese tone sensitivity predicted English stress sensitivity, and English stress sensitivity, in turn, significantly predicted English word reading, as postulated by the prosodic hypothesis. In the second, Cantonese tone sensitivity predicted English word reading through the transfer of segmental phonological awareness between Cantonese and English, as predicted by segmental phonological transfer. These results support a unified model of phonological transfer, emphasizing the role of tone in English word reading for Cantonese-English bilingual children.

Individual differences in processing pitch contour and rise time in adults: A behavioral and electrophysiological study of Cantonese tone merging.

One way to understand the relationship between speech perception and production is to examine cases where the two dissociate. This study investigates the hypothesis that perceptual acuity reflected in event-related potentials (ERPs) to rise time of sound amplitude envelope and pitch contour [reflected in the mismatch negativity (MMN)] may associate with individual differences in production among speakers with otherwise comparable perceptual abilities. To test this hypothesis, advantage was taken of an on-going sound change-tone merging in Cantonese, and compared the ERPs between two groups of typically developed native speakers who could discriminate the high rising and low rising tones with equivalent accuracy but differed in the distinctiveness of their production of these tones. Using a passive oddball paradigm, early positive-going EEG components to rise time and MMN to pitch contour were elicited during perception of the two tones. Significant group differences were found in neural responses to rise time rather than pitch contour. More importantly, individual differences in efficiency of tone discrimination in response latency and magnitude of neural responses to rise time were correlated with acoustic measures of F0 offset and rise time differences in productions of the two rising tones.

The effect of visual information on non-native speakers' perception of Cantonese tones

This study examines the effect of tone marks on the perception of 5 difficult Cantonese tone pairs that have high perceptual similarity: high-rising (25) versus mid-rising (23), mid-level (33) versus low-level (22/11), low-falling (21) versus low-rising (23), low-falling (21) versus low-level (22/11), and low-rising (23) versus low-level(22/11). Native speakers of American English and native speakers of Mandarin participated in a categorial AXB pre-test, a categorial AX training, and a categorial AXB post-test. Half of the subjects received iconic symbols (㐂 ⌉ for high-rising (25), ㌷ for mid-level (33), 㐂 for low-falling (21), 㐂 ㌷ for low-rising (23), and 㐂 for low-level (22/11)) as feedback in the training (Auditory-Visual training group) while the other half did not (Auditory). Preliminary results showed that both language groups improved their discrimination of all the tone pairs and that Mandarin speakers received higher percent response than English speakers in the post-test. AV subjects and A subjects, regardless of language groups, did not differ significantly in percent correct response in the post-test. Reaction time data suggested that AV subjects responded faster on the pair high-rising (25) versus mid-rising (23) than A subjects, regardless of language groups, and that Mandarin speakers responded faster than English speakers in the post-test.

The perceptual assimilation model for suprasegmentals and cross-language lexical-tone identification

We examine how native lexical-tone experience influences identification of novel tone. Cantonese, Thai, Mandarin, and Yoruba listeners identified CV syllables bearing the six phonemic Cantonese tones. Accuracy scores were submitted to a two-way rANOVA with L1-Group (x4) as the between-subjects factor and Tone (x6) as the within-subjects factor. Tone error patterns were also assessed via rANOVAs with L1-Group (x4) as the between-subjects factor and Response-Pattern (% correct versus % other response) as the within-subjects factor. Consistent with previous reports, native listeners’ confusions reflected effects of ongoing tonal mergers and a crowded tone space. Non-native listeners appeared to assimilate novel tones to L1 tone categories by attending to phonetic cues relevant to the phonological and phonetic properties of their L1s. Overall, results support predictions of the Perceptual Assimilation Model for Suprasegmentals (PAM-S). [Support: NSF grant 0965227 to J.A.A.]

Learning Cantonese as an additional language (CAL) or not: What the CAL learners say

Abstract Based on qualitative data obtained from 33 participants in four focus groups, two each in Putonghua (17) and English (16) respectively, this study shows that learners of Cantonese as an additional language (CAL) in Hong Kong experience a lot of difficulties. As a ‘dialect’, Cantonese has not been standardized and is not part of school literacy. A variety of romanization systems are used in commercially obtainable learning aid like Cantonese course books and bilingual dictionaries, which tend to diverge from romanized Cantonese in street signs and personal names. Independent learning is difficult while incidental learning is almost impossible. Cantonese tuition, often focusing on tones, is reportedly not so helpful. With six distinctive tonemes, the Cantonese tone system appears to be a major stumbling block. When spoken to in Cantonese, local speakers tend to switch to English or Putonghua. Inaccuracies in tone contours often trigger laughter, damaging CAL learners’ self-esteem and dampening their motivation to learn and speak Cantonese. Unlike sojourners, non-Chinese residents who see themselves as Hongkongers often get upset as their identity claims are questioned or even challenged by the mainstream Cantonese society.

Relationships among individual differences in tone processing and cognitive functions: A case study of Cantonese tone merger

Relationships among individual differences in tone processing and cognitive functions: A case study of Cantonese tone merger

A Tale of Two Features: Perception of Cantonese Lexical Tone and English Lexical Stress in Cantonese-English Bilinguals.

This study investigated the similarities and differences in perception of Cantonese tones and English stress patterns by Cantonese-English bilingual children, adults, and English monolingual adults. All three groups were asked to discriminate pairs of syllables that minimally differed in either Cantonese tone or in English stress. Bilingual children’s performance on tone perception was comparable to their performance on stress perception. By contrast, bilingual adults’ performance on tone perception was lower than their performance on stress perception, and there was a similar pattern in English monolingual adults. Bilingual adults tended to perform better than English monolingual adults on both the tone and stress perception tests. A significant correlation between tone perception and stress perception performance was found in bilingual children but not in bilingual adults. All three groups showed lower accuracy in the high rising-low rising contrast than any of the other 14 Cantonese tone contrasts. The acoustic analyses revealed that average F0, F0 onset, and F0 major slope were the critical acoustic correlates of Cantonese tones, whereas multiple acoustic correlates were salient in English stress, including average F0, spectral balance, duration and intensity. We argue that participants’ difficulty in perceiving high rising-low rising contrasts originated from the contrasts’ similarities in F0 onset and average F0; indeed the difference between their major slopes was the only cue with which to distinguish them. Acoustic-perceptual correlation analyses showed that although the average F0 and F0 onset were associated with tone perception performance in all three groups, F0 major slope was only associated with tone perception in the bilingual adult group. These results support a dynamic interactive account of suprasegmental speech perception by emphasizing the positive prosodic transfer between Cantonese tone and English stress, and the role that level of bilingual language experience and age play in shaping suprasegmental speech perception.

The perception of Mandarin lexical tones by listeners from different linguistic backgrounds

Abstract Two groups of non-native adult learners of Mandarin in Australia were directly compared in their ability to perceive monosyllabic Mandarin words contrasting in lexical tones. They differed in their linguistic experience (non-heritage (n=10), heritage (n=12)). A group of eight native Mandarin speakers and a group of ten functionally monolingual speakers of Australian English were included as controls. All non-native learners used English as their primary language of communication. However, the heritage learners were able to communicate in Cantonese as well as English. The primary question of interest was whether heritage learners’ knowledge of contrastive tone in Cantonese might give them an advantage over English-speaking learners in perceiving tone contrasts in Mandarin. In general, there were more similarities than differences between the two groups of learners in their response patterns. Of the six tone contrasts examined (T1-T2, T1-T3, T1-T4, T2-T3, T2-T4, T3-T4), the two groups significantly differed only on T1-T4. The heritage learners were less accurate on T1-T4 than the non-heritage learners who are monolingual speakers of Australian English. On the other hand, the non-heritage learners were more accurate than Australian English speakers with no prior experience with Mandarin on all tone contrasts. Thus, we conclude that simply having an exposure to and functional knowledge of another tonal language since early childhood does not guarantee accurate perception of Mandarin tones in comparison with adult learners without prior experience with tonal languages.

Functionally integrated neural processing of linguistic and talker information: An event-related fMRI and ERP study

Speech signals contain information of both linguistic content and a talker's voice. Conventionally, linguistic and talker processing are thought to be mediated by distinct neural systems in the left and right hemispheres respectively, but there is growing evidence that linguistic and talker processing interact in many ways. Previous studies suggest that talker-related vocal tract changes are processed integrally with phonetic changes in the bilateral posterior superior temporal gyrus/superior temporal sulcus (STG/STS), because the vocal tract parameter influences the perception of phonetic information. It is yet unclear whether the bilateral STG is also activated by the integral processing of another parameter — pitch, which influences the perception of lexical tone information and is related to talker differences in tone languages. In this study, we conducted separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potential (ERP) experiments to examine the spatial and temporal loci of interactions of lexical tone and talker-related pitch processing in Cantonese. We found that the STG was activated bilaterally during the processing of talker changes when listeners attended to lexical tone changes in the stimuli and during the processing of lexical tone changes when listeners attended to talker changes, suggesting that lexical tone and talker processing are functionally integrated in the bilateral STG. It extends the previous study, providing evidence for a general neural mechanism of integral phonetic and talker processing in the bilateral STG. The ERP results show interactions of lexical tone and talker processing 500–800ms after auditory word onset (a simultaneous posterior P3b and a frontal negativity). Moreover, there is some asymmetry in the interaction, such that unattended talker changes affect linguistic processing more than vice versa, which may be related to the ambiguity that talker changes cause in speech perception and/or attention bias to talker changes. Our findings have implications for understanding the neural encoding of linguistic and talker information.

Surface Electromyographic Activity of Extrinsic Laryngeal Muscles in Cantonese Tone Production

Patients after total laryngectomy lose their ability to speak. Electrolarynx is a commonly used electronic device that helps these patients to verbally communicate. However, existing electrolarynx systems do not provide pitch control function, which is critical in speech communication especially for tonal languages. This study investigated the surface electromyographic (sEMG) activity of extrinsic laryngeal muscles in producing speech sounds of different pitches by normal speakers. In particular, the sEMG signals for producing different lexical tones of Cantonese were extracted and analyzed. The experimental results on Cantonese tone production confirmed that the sEMG signal from sternocleidomastoid muscle can be used to differentiate high-pitch tones from low-pitch tones. This reveals the potential of developing pitch-controlled EL systems for laryngectomees who speak Cantonese and other tonal languages.

Brainstem encoding of speech and musical stimuli in congenital amusia: evidence from Cantonese speakers.

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of musical processing that also impacts subtle aspects of speech processing. It remains debated at what stage(s) of auditory processing deficits in amusia arise. In this study, we investigated whether amusia originates from impaired subcortical encoding of speech (in quiet and noise) and musical sounds in the brainstem. Fourteen Cantonese-speaking amusics and 14 matched controls passively listened to six Cantonese lexical tones in quiet, two Cantonese tones in noise (signal-to-noise ratios at 0 and 20 dB), and two cello tones in quiet while their frequency-following responses (FFRs) to these tones were recorded. All participants also completed a behavioral lexical tone identification task. The results indicated normal brainstem encoding of pitch in speech (in quiet and noise) and musical stimuli in amusics relative to controls, as measured by FFR pitch strength, pitch error, and stimulus-to-response correlation. There was also no group difference in neural conduction time or FFR amplitudes. Both groups demonstrated better FFRs to speech (in quiet and noise) than to musical stimuli. However, a significant group difference was observed for tone identification, with amusics showing significantly lower accuracy than controls. Analysis of the tone confusion matrices suggested that amusics were more likely than controls to confuse between tones that shared similar acoustic features. Interestingly, this deficit in lexical tone identification was not coupled with brainstem abnormality for either speech or musical stimuli. Together, our results suggest that the amusic brainstem is not functioning abnormally, although higher-order linguistic pitch processing is impaired in amusia. This finding has significant implications for theories of central auditory processing, requiring further investigations into how different stages of auditory processing interact in the human brain.

Neural correlates of individual differences in processing of rising tones in Cantonese: Implications for speech perception and production

Neural correlates of individual differences in processing of rising tones in Cantonese: Implications for speech perception and production

Does second language experience modulate perception of tones in a third language?

Previous studies have shown that English speakers pay attention to pitch height rather than direction, whereas Mandarin speakers are more sensitive to pitch direction than height in perception of lexical tones. The present study addresses if a second language (L2, i.e., Mandarin) overrides the influence of a native language (L1, i.e., English) in modulating listeners' use of pitch cues in the perception of tones in a third language (L3, i.e., Cantonese). English-speaking L2 learners (L2ers) of Mandarin constituted the target group. Mandarin speakers and English speakers without knowledge of Mandarin were included as control groups. In Experiment 1, all groups, naïve to Cantonese tones, discriminated Cantonese tones by distinguishing either a contour tone from a level tone (pitch direction pair) or a level tone from another level tone (pitch height pair). The results showed that L2ers patterned differently from both control groups with regard to pitch cues under the influence of L2 experience. The acoustics of the tones also affected all listeners' discrimination. In Experiment 2, L2ers were instructed to identify Mandarin tones to measure their sensitivity to L2 tones. The results showed that L2ers' sensitivity to L2 tones is not necessarily correlated with their perception of L3 tones.

Processing segmental and prosodic information in spoken word planning: Further evidence from Cantonese Chinese

AbstractThree picture‐word interference experiments were conducted to investigate how segmental and tonal information is processed in Cantonese spoken word planning. The picture names were all Cantonese monosyllables with a consonant‐vowel‐consonant structure. Significant facilitation effects on naming latencies were found when the target (e.g., 星 /sing1/, “Star”) and the auditory word distractor (e.g., /ging2/, /sik6/, or /soeng3/) shared two identical phonemic segments (regardless of the segments' syllable‐internal position), than when they were unrelated, whereas no reliable effects were obtained when they shared only the vowel (e.g., /dim3/), the coda (e.g., /hung2/), or together with the tone (e.g., /bit1/ or /fung1/). Furthermore, the facilitation effect observed in the consonant + consonant + tone‐related condition (e.g., /soeng1/) was reliably larger than that in the consonant + consonant‐related condition (e.g., /soeng3/). These results suggest that activation of a single segment is not effective in influencing Cantonese word production and that the lexical tone in Cantonese has a unique role to play. A model which assumes interactivity between lexical and sublexical (including tonal and segmental representations) levels of processing in Cantonese spoken word planning can best account for the available results.

The effect of enhancing temporal periodicity cues on Cantonese tone recognition by cochlear implantees

Objectives: This study investigates the efficacy of a cochlear implant (CI) processing method that enhances temporal periodicity cues of speech. Design: Subjects participated in word and tone identification tasks. Two processing conditions – the conventional advanced combination encoder (ACE) and tone-enhanced ACE were tested. Test materials were Cantonese disyllabic words recorded from one male and one female speaker. Speech-shaped noise was added to clean speech. The fundamental frequency information for periodicity enhancement was extracted from the clean speech. Electrical stimuli generated from the noisy speech with and without periodicity enhancement were presented via direct stimulation using a Laura 34 research processor. Subjects were asked to identify the presented word. Study sample: Seven post-lingually deafened native Cantonese-speaking CI users. Results: Percent correct word, segmental structure, and tone identification scores were calculated. While word and segmental structure identification accuracy remained similar between the two processing conditions, tone identification in noise was better with tone-enhanced ACE than with conventional ACE. Significant improvement on tone perception was found only for the female voice. Conclusions: Temporal periodicity cues are important to tone perception in noise. Pitch and tone perception by CI users could be improved when listeners received enhanced temporal periodicity cues.

Cantonese tone production performance of mainstream school children with hearing impairment

This study investigated the Cantonese tone production ability of children with hearing impairment studying in mainstream schools. The participants were 87 Cantonese-speaking children with mild-to-profound degrees of hearing loss aged 5.92–13.58 in Hong Kong. Most of the children were fitted with hearing aids (n = 65); 17 of them had profound hearing impairment, one who had severe hearing loss had cochlear implantation, and four who had mild hearing loss were without any hearing device. The Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test was administered, and the tones produced were rated by two of the authors and a speech-language pathologist. Group effects of tones, hearing loss level, and also an interaction of the two were found to be significant. The children with profound hearing impairment performed significantly worse than most of the other children. Tone 1 was produced most accurately, whereas tone 6 productions were the poorest. No relationship was found between the number of years of mainstreaming and tone production ability. Tone production error pattern revealed that confusion patterns in tone perception coincided with those in production. Tones having a similar fundamental frequency (F0) at the onset also posed difficulty in tone production for children with hearing impairment.

Discrimination of Cantonese Tones by Speakers of Tone and Non-tone Languages

Listeners often find some non-native sounds difficult to perceive. For example, lexical tones in Chinese languages are difficult for non-native listeners to perceive, although pitch is frequently used in their first language (L1) and is not unfamiliar to them. We conduct a cross-linguistic study to explore the factors contributing to the difficulty of tone perception for non-native listeners.

The influence of tone inventory on ERP without focal attention: a cross-language study.

This study investigates the effect of tone inventories on brain activities underlying pitch without focal attention. We find that the electrophysiological responses to across-category stimuli are larger than those to within-category stimuli when the pitch contours are superimposed on nonspeech stimuli; however, there is no electrophysiological response difference associated with category status in speech stimuli. Moreover, this category effect in nonspeech stimuli is stronger for Cantonese speakers. Results of previous and present studies lead us to conclude that brain activities to the same native lexical tone contrasts are modulated by speakers' language experiences not only in active phonological processing but also in automatic feature detection without focal attention. In contrast to the condition with focal attention, where phonological processing is stronger for speech stimuli, the feature detection (pitch contours in this study) without focal attention as shaped by language background is superior in relatively regular stimuli, that is, the nonspeech stimuli. The results suggest that Cantonese listeners outperform Mandarin listeners in automatic detection of pitch features because of the denser Cantonese tone system.

Referential Labeling Can Facilitate Phonetic Learning in Infancy

All languages employ certain phonetic contrasts when distinguishing words. Infant speech perception is rapidly attuned to these contrasts before many words are learned, thus phonetic attunement is thought to proceed independently of lexical and referential knowledge. Here, evidence to the contrary is provided. Ninety-eight 9-month-old English-learning infants were trained to perceive a non-native Cantonese tone contrast.Two object–tone audiovisual pairings were consistently presented, which highlighted the target contrast (Object A with Tone X; Object B with Tone Y). Tone discrimination was then assessed. Results showed improved tone discrimination if object–tone pairings were perceived as being referential word labels, although this effect was modulated by vocabulary size. Results suggest how lexical and referential knowledge could play a role in phonetic attunement.

Asymmetric Mismatch Negativity and Underlying Representations of Lexical Tones in Cantonese

Asymmetric Mismatch Negativity and Underlying Representations of Lexical Tones in Cantonese