L1-transfer facilitated by phonological overlap and L2 experience in nonnative sound production

What is it about?

When learning a second language (L2), those sounds that the first language (L1) shares with the target L2 are easier to acquire. The phoneme inventory of Shanghai Chinese has voiced stops that are the same as in Japanese, whereas Mandarin Chinese does not have voiced stops. As a result, native speakers of Shanghai and Mandarin Chinese produce more target-like voiced stops in Japanese than those who only speak Mandarin. The L1 influence is subject to bilingual learners' L2 experience.

Featured Image

Photo by Freeman Zhou on Unsplash

Photo by Freeman Zhou on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study compares the Japanese sound production by Mandarin monolinguals and Mandarin Shanghai Chinese bilinguals. Both Shanghai Chinese and Japanese have voiced stops in their phoneme inventory, whereas Mandarin Chinese only has voiceless stops. By measuring the voice onset time, we found that Shanghai Chinese and Mandarin bilinguals produce more target-like voiced stops, showing a facilitative effect of shared phonemes. Additionally, we found that the L1-transfer is also subject to the L2 experience.

Perspectives