Comparing Mandarin Lexical Stress Produced by Native Speakers and L2 Learners in Hong Kong

摘要

The present study conducted both acoustic analysis and perceptual experiment to compare lexical stress patterns in Mandarin disyllabic words produced by native speakers and by Hong Kong L2 learners of Mandarin. The lexical stresses in four tones and in three types of word contexts (i.e., isolated word, word in a broad-focus utterance, and on-focus word in a narrow-focus utterance) were compared. The perceptual experiment showed that most words produced by both groups were left-stressed, and the proportion of left-stressed words in the L2 group was significantly higher than in the L1 group; In both groups, T4 was the most stressed, whereas T1 and T3 were the least stressed; In isolated words, the L2 group tended to be left-stressed, while the L1 group tended to be right-stressed; In sentential context, both groups tended to be left-stressed, especially for the L2 group. Acoustic analysis showed that the two groups differed in the mean F0, the F0 range difference between the two syllables, and the F0 range in the right syllable. Both the acoustic and perceptual results showed that F0 was the most important acoustic cue for lexical stress in Mandarin.