Phonological Constraints on the Acquisition of Mid Vowels in English for Students in Taiwan

author: 黃俐雯 presented by Lisa Liu 報告人 : 劉莉莎

Background

1. Most Taiwan students are bilinguals or even multi-linguals. Their English speaking are affected by their first or second languages.

2. Their English pronunciation are constrained by L1’s or L2’s dissimilation. So they will not pronounce accurately.

3. This study aims to investigate whether they are perceptive about the differences of the English mid vowels /e/, /D/, /W/, /o/, and /C/ and this research will explore which mother language influences their English pronunciation more.

4 RQ

1. If the subjects can identify the differences between the five mid vowels [e] [] [] [o] []?

2. What are the roles of native languages in the acquisition of L3 English?

3. What are the differences between English mid- front vowels [e] [] [], Mandarin [ei] [e] and SM [e]

4. Which mother language (Mandarin or Southern Min) influences the subjects’ L3 more.

Literature Review

Ladefoged (2001) :1. Most language have at least three phonemic

vowels ( usually /i , A， u/ ).2. Vowels can be pronounced in different way or in different voices but the same person’s qualities will still be the same.

Literature ReviewAcoustic Vowel AnalysisDeterding (1997) :1. Pitches and first , second frequencies (F1 and F2)are

used to distinguish vowels.2. F1, F2 are the most important formants in the four

formants of a vowel.English vowelsPeterson and Barney (1952):3. Eleven distinct vowels /i, , e , , , ,u, , o, , a/ and three diphthongs /a , a , / are included in American English vowel system.

Literature Review

2. Wang (2012): These 14 vowels can be distinguished into 5 categories: 1. tongue height 2. tongue advancement 3. tenseness 4. lip rounding 5. retroflection

Literature ReviewMandarin VowelsHowie (1976): There are only six vowels in

Mandarin. They are /i, y, , , u, a/.

• Zhu (2007): There are nine vowels : /i(一 ), u(ㄨ ), y(ㄩ ), a(ㄚ ), (ㄛ ), (ㄜ ),

e(ㄝ ), (ㄦ ),ə/, and nine diphthongs: /ai, ei, ɑo, ou, ia, iɛ, uɑ, uo, yɛ/ in Mandarin.

The position of Mandarin vowels four degrees of vowel height: Close, close-mid, open mid and open three degrees of vowel roundness: front, central and back

Literature Review-Mandarin Vowels

Chung (2006) :1. Mandarin diphthongs occur when a vowel

followed by a glide // or //. falling diphthongs rising diphthongs2. Assimilation Constraint (2013): All the Mandarin diphthongs should be composed

of the vowels which are in the same backness.

Literature Review-Southern Min Vowels

Hsieh (2007):There were six vowels in Southern Min: /i, e, a,

u, o, ə /.Wang (2012): The vowels [i] and [u] were

regarded as high vowels, while [a] was a low vowel, and the other three vowels [e, o, ə ] were mid vowels.

Literature Review-Southern Min Vowels

Chung (1996): 1. There are no distinctions between tense or lax

vowels.2. There are eight oral diphthongs in Southern

Min as follow: /ia, io,ua, ue/ are in the group of rising diphthongs, and /ai, au, ui, iu/ are falling diphthongs.

Literature Review-Southern Min Vowels

3. Dissimilatory Constraint (Chung, 2013)Southern Min diphthongs should be constructed

with the vowels sharing with different backness.

Mandarin diphthongs : should be constructed

with the vowels sharing with the same backness

MethodParticipants: 28 female students at their 2

grade in Junior college in Chiayi, Taiwan Gender: All female Characteristic: 1. L1 is Southern Min 2. L2 is Mandarin 3. L3 is English

Instruments and materials

1. A questionnaire2. Three reading lists for the production

experiment3. A listening task for the perception

experiment4. Reading materials5. Three computer software, Window 7, Praat

and Excel

Production experiment

Method:1. The participants read 28 -English -sentenced,

26 -mandarin -sentenced, and 21- Southern Min- sentenced word lists twice, and chose the better one for analysis.

2. Each English word contains one of the mid vowels [i , ɪ, e, æ, ɛ, ɑ, o, ɔ, u ,ʊ], but only two groups of mid vowels [e, æ, ɛ] and [o, ɔ] were further analyzed.

Production experiment

3. Only [e] and [o] sounds were researched in

Mandarin word lists. 4. Only [e] and [ɔ] were researched in

Southern Min.

Mid vowels in three languages

Perception experiment

1. A listening task was conducted to test the subjects’ comprehension of the two groups of mid vowels.

2. One English native speaker and one Taiwanese native speaker recorded their utterances as the speech stimuli for the perception experiment.

3. Fifteen recorded words, which were embedded in the sentences, were cut into monophthongs

[e] [æ] [ɛ] and [o] [ɔ] by using the program Praat. 4. These mid vowel monophthongs were recognized in random

order for the subjects’ perception experiment.

Recording Materials

1. A notebook2. Praat Sound Recorder 3. A head-microphone with a speaker4. A recording shelter used to reduce the noise

for a high recording quality

Instruments for Data Analysis

1. Praat: to get the formants of the vowels to show the position of the tongue

2. Micro Office Excel: to fill in the F1 and F2 values of the vowels and plot the vowels of the recorded English, Mandarin and Southern Min words

3. A set of norm form Hillenbrand et.al (1995): being adopted to compare with the subjects.

Data Analysis

1. When the collected data was analyzed, the mean values of the F1 and F2 formants will be transferred into vowel charts by using Micro Office Excel.

2. Through the charts, the researcher compared the position of English’s, Mandarin’s , and Southern Ming’s mid vowels.

Procedure-7 steps1. Designing a questionnaire, reading lists and

the listening list2. Selecting 28 subjects 3. Filling out the questionnaire4. Completing the production experiment5. Completing the perception experiment6. Analyzing the collected data and getting the

result7. Making conclusions and giving suggestions

Results and Discussion

English:The subjects pronounced English mid-front

vowels [e, æ, ɛ] and mid-back vowels [o , ɔ] very similarly.

Southern Min:1. SM mid-front vowel[e] was close to English

mid-front vowels.2. SM mid-front [e] was very close to English

mid-front vowel[æ]

Results and Discussion

3. SM mid-back vowel [o] was obviously different from English mid-back vowels [o] [ɔ].

Mandarin: 1. M mid-front vowel [ei] is different from

English mid-front vowels [e] [æ] [ɛ].2. M mid-back vowel [ou] is different from

English mid-back vowels [o] [ɔ]

Results and Discussion-comparing with the norm

Three languages comparing with the norm from Hillenbrand et.al (1995):

English mid-front vowels1. Taiwanese students’ English mid-front vowels

were close to the norm’s lax vowel.2. They were produced more backward than

the norm’s [e] [æ] but frontward than [ɛ]

Results and Discussion-comparing with the norm

※ Mandarin [ei] were not similar to the norm’s lax vowel [æ] but located a little higher than the norm’s [æ] ※ Southern Min [e] was closer to the norm’s [æ] ※ All the mid –back vowels were more frontward than the norm’s. ※ Southern Min [o] was the closest to the norm’s lax vowel [ɔ]. ※ Mandarin [o] was the closest to the norm’s

tense vowel [o]

Conclusion

1. Most subjects can identify English mid vowels [e] [ɛ] [o ] [ɔ] but confuse [æ] with [e].

2. The subjects’ English are influenced by their mother languages.

3. The places of articulation of English mid-front vowels are all lower than those of Mandarin and SM.

4. For English tense vowel[e], the most similar mother language phoneme is Mandarin [ei]