Do mandarin-english bilinguals have an accent in their L1 vowel production?

Authors

  • Haisheng Jiang Dept. of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada

Abstract

A study was conducted to examine the Mandarin vowel production by a group of Mandarin-English bilinguals. The study aimed to determine the L1 vowel production of Mandarin-English bilinguals and acoustic properties of the accent. Thirteen Mandarin monolinguals, 33 Mandarin-English bilinguals, and 12 English monolinguals were used for the study to produce vowel tokens. The Mandarin-English bilinguals were divided into a group of high L1 use and a group of low L1 use. The Mandarin monolinguals and Mandarin-English bilinguals produce Mandarin vowel tokens, while the English monolinguals produced English vowel tokens. It was observed that the Mandarin English bilinguals produced sound accented to Mandarin listeners despite of amount of L1 use. The study found that L1 segments need to be included in the speech learning theories.

Additional Files

Published

2008-09-01

How to Cite

1.
Jiang H. Do mandarin-english bilinguals have an accent in their L1 vowel production?. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2008 Sep. 1 [cited 2024 Mar. 28];36(3):132-3. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/2073

Issue

Section

Proceedings of the Acoustics Week in Canada