2023.09.09 18:44
[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