Online Location, https://gmu.zoom.us/j/4212272067
April 22, 2021, 07:30 PM to 09:30 PM
This dissertation investigates Voice Onset Time in L1 and L2 Mandarin. It surveys VOT variations and demonstrates that they are affected by several phonetic and phonological properties, e.g., lexical tone, place of articulation, speech rate, phrase position, pitch register, vowel duration, and gender. Although VOT has been suggested to vary in different lexical tones, the question has not been explored as to which one of the properties of a tone is responsible for the effect and whether L2 Mandarin production exhibits a similar tone effect from various language backgrounds.
Testing 164 participants (68 Taiwanese, 34 Spanish, 40 Japanese, and 22 English speakers of Mandarin), the results reveal that when other factors were attended to, tone indeed affects VOT, and the higher the onset tone pitch, the shorter the VOT. Place of articulation of the stop consonant, speech rate, and native language effects were also significant. The effects of phrase position, vowel duration, and gender were not apparent from the given data. In a VOT baseline test, the results also show that two out of three L2 groups used neither Mandarin VOT nor their L1 VOT, suggesting that VOT is probably mediated by the combination of Aerodynamic, Physiological, and Myoelastic factors (McCrea & Morris, 2005; Narayan & Bowden, 2013; Cho & Ladefoged, 1999; Eshghi et al., 2016; Van dem Berg, 1958).
This dissertation provides empirical evidence that an acoustic property such as VOT is not an isolated phenomenon but is involved with other complex phonological categories, such as lexical tone. It also discusses how the effects operate within phonetic and phonological theories. Additionally, it compares Mandarin learners’ L1 and L2 VOT directly. The observed data may have important implications concerning lexical tone acquisition and native-like VOT production for L2 English, Japanese, and Spanish learners of Mandarin.