The longitudinal development of focus duration of Korean Chinese learners

Abstract

Linguistic focus conveys semantic meanings and speakers' intentions. However, the perceptual and production patterns of focal speech for L2 learners are always affected by their mother tongues. The present paper concerns the longitudinal developmental patterns of focus duration for Chinese learners whose mother tongue is Korean (hereafter Korean Chinese Learners). The results show that (i) The development trajectory of focus duration follows a non-linear pattern. (ii) Tone of the focal syllable significantly affects the longitudinal development, that tone 3 (the low tone) shows a larger deviation than other tones. (iii) Focus position also has an obvious effect, especially in the initial and final positions of the sentence.