Perception of Consonants in Single Codas in English by Cantonese and Mandarin Speakers

Mijia OU

Abstract


One’s native language (L1) would interfere with the perception of a foreign language because of the differences between the sound inventories and distributions in the two languages. Compared with English, the syllable structures of Cantonese and Mandarin are relatively simple. Mandarin has only two coda consonants /n/ and /ŋ/, while Cantonese has six: /p/,/t/,/k/,/m/,/n/,/ŋ/, both languages do not allow consonant clusters. However, English allows multiple consonants in syllable final position.
This study investigates Cantonese and Mandarin speakers’ perception of English consonants in single codas, and found that Cantonese who were learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) have advantages in the perception of English coda nasals and stops compared to the Mandarin speakers, but they have difficulty in identifying the voiced-voiceless contrasts in plosives. This is considered to be a result of negative transfer from their first language.


Keywords


Syllable-final consonants; Codas; L2 speech learning, Perception; Interlanguage

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/12800

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