Perception of Mandarin sibilants by Chinese-as-a-foreign-language beginners

Abstract

Alveolar sibilants in Mandarin Chinese are rare in other languages, and are considered hard to distinguish for non-native speakers. We investigated how Korean learners of Chinese perceived these consonants, and explored influences of phonetic (dis)similarity on foreign language speech learning. Korean speakers showed sensitivity to contrasts of places but were confused by those involving manners. Their perception was also affected by vowel contexts. Our findings were discussed further within the Perceptual Assimilation Model and the Automatic Selective Perception Model. 普通话的舌冠擦音与塞擦音被认为是世界语言中比较独特的辅音类别。本研究使用语音区分实验调查了初学普通话的韩国留学生对舌冠擦音和塞擦音的感知，探讨汉韩语音异同对区分发音方式及位置的影响。结果表明，留学生对方式对立较敏感，但对位置差别感到困惑，且受元音影响明显。本文引用两个现时较有影响力的理论模型，结合汉韩异同，进一步探讨了影响听辨普通话辅音的因素。