The Effect of Mandarin Tone on the Perception and Production The Effect of Mandarin Tone on the Perception and Production of English Consonant Clusters

The present study investigates the effect of language-specific features of L1 on the acquisition of L2. It is intended to show how English initial clusters are produced and perceived by Chinese advanced learners whose language does not allow clusters. Previously we found that Chinese advanced learners would simplify the syllable structure of the English clusters: Cantonese, a southern dialect, speakers delete or substitute one consonant whereas Mandarin, a northern dialect, speakers add a vowel. The present paper is to further analyze the acoustic properties of the inserted vowel in the productions of Mandarin speakers and compare them with those of a schwa. In addition, the paper aims to show the perceptual difference between native English speakers and Mandarin speakers. In the production study, minimal pairs contrasting an r-cluster and a schwa, such as /prit/ and /pərit/, were collected from five advanced learners of English. Vowel part of the stimuli was extracted and analyzed for formants (F1, F2), pitch, and duration. The inserted vowel part in the clusters was significantly different from a schwa (p