The Influence Of L1 Experience On The Perception Of L2 Tones

Present study probes into the influence of L1 tonal experience on the perception ofL2 tones. 84 1st, 2nd and 7th graders, who are Mandarin monolinguals or Xianyou dialectspeakers with Mandarin as their second language, were recruited in the experiment. Asame-different discrimination paradigm was adopted to assess the perception of Mandarintones among Mandarin monolinguals and Xianyou dialect speakers. The results indicatedthat experience with L1 tonal system may not necessarily facilitate the perception of L2tones, and that sufficient L2 experience might assist L2 learners in successfully perceiveL2 tones. Present study provides a piece of supportive evidence for the assumptions thatL2 acquisition processes might be analogous at the segmental and suprasegmetal levels,both revealing categorical perception nature, and that phonological perception modelssuch as Perceptual Assimilation Model, Native Language Magnet Model and SpeechLearning Model might be applicable to the perception of suprasegments.