Effects of Semantic Context and Fundamental Frequency Contours on Mandarin Speech Recognition by Second Language Learners.

ABSTRACT: Speech recognition by second language (L2) learners in optimal and suboptimal conditions has been examined extensively with English as the target language in most previous studies. This study extended existing experimental protocols (Wang et al., 2013) to investigate Mandarin speech recognition by Japanese learners of Mandarin at two different levels (elementary vs. intermediate) of proficiency. The overall results showed that in addition to L2 proficiency, semantic context, F0 contours, and listening condition all affected the recognition performance on the Mandarin sentences. However, the effects of semantic context and F0 contours on L2 speech recognition diverged to some extent. Specifically, there was significant modulation effect of listening condition on semantic context, indicating

SUBMITTER: Zhang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4905971 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature