[DOI: 10.17959/sppm.2023.29.2.169]

[본문: 파일]

Acoustic cue weighting in the perception of English lexical stress by native Korean and Chinese listeners 

Eunkyung Sung (Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)

Abstract

This study explores whether listeners can effectively apply acoustic cues used in their 

L1 to process lexical stress in L2. Two groups of listeners, consisting of 21 Korean 

and 20 Chinese listeners, participated in the study, with 20 English listeners as a 

control  group.  The  experiment  involved  English  nonce  words,  and  the  stimulus 

tokens  were  manipulated  based  on  three  acoustic  cues  (i.e.,  duration,  f0,  and 

intensity).  The  results  demonstrated  that  all  three  acoustic  cues  significantly 

influenced the perception of stress. Moreover, there were noticeable differences in 

the impact of these cues among the listener groups. The Korean listeners heavily 

relied on f0 and intensity cues to perceive English stress, despite these cues not being 

used for lexical prominence in Korean. In Korean, f0 contributes to the expression of 

phrasal tones and also plays a role in distinguishing between stop categories. On the 

other hand, the Chinese listeners displayed greater sensitivity to f0 compared to the 

other cues when processing lexical stress. This observation aligns with the fact that 

Chinese is a tonal language, where f0 plays a crucial role in conveying meaning. The 

present  findings  suggest  that  the  effects  of  L1  on  the  perception  of  L2  can  be 

attributed to listeners’ transfer of cue weighting from L1 to L2. Also, this study 

discusses the difference in sensitivity to f0 cue variations between the Korean and 

Chinese listeners. 

Keywords

acoustic cue weighting, transfer, English lexical stress, Korean listeners, Chinese listeners