Perception in context of Chinese and Japanese: the role of language proficiency.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The effect of language context on bilinguals has been studied in phonetic production. However, it is still unclear how the language context affects phonetic perception as the level of second language (L2) proficiency increases.

Methods

Chinese-Japanese auditory cognates were selected to avoid the interference of semantics and font or spelling processing. Low- to high-proficiency Chinese-Japanese bilinguals, as well as Chinese and Japanese monolinguals, were asked to judge whether the initial morpheme of the Chinese or Japanese words was pronounced with the vowels /a/ or /i/ in single- and mixed-language contexts.

Results

The results found that low-proficiency bilinguals judged vowels faster in the single-language context than in the mixed-language context

SUBMITTER: Lu S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11801191 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature