Production and perception of temporal patterns in native and non-native speech

Abstract

Two experiments examined production and perception of English temporal patterns by native and non-native participants. Experiment 1 indicated that native and non-native (L1 = Chinese) talkers differed significantly in their production of one English duration pattern (i.e., vowel lengthening before voiced versus voice-less consonants) but not another (i.e., tense versus lax vowels). Experiment 2 tested native and non-native listener identification of words that differed in voicing of the final consonant by the native and non-native talkers whose productions were substantially different in experiment 1. Results indicated that differences in native and non-native intelligibility may be partially explained by temporal pat-tern differences in vowel duration although other cues such as presence of stop releases and burst duration may also contribute. Additionally, speech intelligibility depends on shared phonetic knowledge between talkers and listeners rather than only on accuracy relative to idealized production norms.

Fig. 1

Average vowel durations preceding voiced and voiceless consonants for the native and non-native speaker groups.

Fig. 2

Relative vowel lengthening averaged across lexical items before voiced versus voiceless consonants for individual, native and non-native speakers. The arrows indicate speakers selected for perception testing in experiment 2, who are described in more detail in the text.

Fig. 3

Proportion correct word identification by (from left to right) native, non-Chinese non-native, and Chinese non-native listeners on a one-interval, two-alternative forced-choice task for final consonant voiced/voiceless contrasts produced by native and non-native (Chinese) talkers. In these box plots, the box shows the 25–75th percentiles with the median indicated by the line inside the box, the error bars show the 10th and 90th percentiles, and the triangles below and above the error bars indicate data points that fell outside of the 10th and 90th percentiles, respectively.

Fig. 4

Coda consonant measurements for the 2 native and 2 non-native talkers’ productions presented to listeners in the perception experiment (experiment 2).