Perceptual assimilation of Mandarin consonants in second language acquisition

Abstract

Research on adult cross-language speech perception suggests that adults face challenges perceiving segments distinctions that are not employed contrastively in their own language. Cross-language speech perceptual similarity has played a significant role in predicting and explaining L2 speech perception. It’s necessary to carry out a perceptual assimilation study on Mandarin which is an influencing language and has an increasing number of L2 learners around the world. The present study investigates the perception of Mandarin consonants by native Urdu speakers. To this purpose, 15 Urdu speakers were tested in an assimilation task in which they were asked to assimilate Mandarin consonants to their native language categories. The results show that native language interfere with the perception of non-native consonants in a certain extend that is in conformity to what PAM proposed. Furthermore, the results expand the application of PAM in Mandarin and provide a baseline for future relevant studies.