Native-like perception of intonational prominence is important for spoken language competency. Non-native speakers may have trouble interpreting prosodic variation in a second language like English, where intonational variation can critically influence utterance semantics. By identifying types of prosody non-native learners find difficult to perceive, we can improve our ability to teach L2 speakers a language. In this paper we present results of a perception study in which Mandarin speakers with knowledge of English were tested on their ability to identify prosodic prominence in English in a variety of contexts. Through this analysis we identify particular contexts which make it difficult forMandarin speakers to recognize pitch accent in English.
Index Terms: prosody, pitch accent, intonational prominence, perception, non-native speech
Cite as: Rosenberg, A., Hirschberg, J., Manis, K. (2010) Perception of English prominence by native Mandarin Chinese speakers. Proc. Speech Prosody 2010, paper 982
@inproceedings{rosenberg10_speechprosody,
author={Andrew Rosenberg and Julia Hirschberg and Kim Manis},
title={{Perception of English prominence by native Mandarin Chinese speakers}},
year=2010,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2010},
pages={paper 982}
}