Chinese Learners' Phonetic Transfer of /i/ from Mandarin Chinese to General American English: A Case Study of a Chinese Learner with Advanced English

TL;DR

This case study investigates how an advanced Chinese English learner's perception and production of the vowel /i/ in American English are influenced by phonetic transfer from Mandarin Chinese, revealing persistent transfer despite perceptual competence.

Contribution

It provides detailed analysis of phonetic transfer in an advanced learner, highlighting that perceptual ability does not necessarily reduce transfer effects in production.

Findings

Vanya can distinguish /i/ and its lax counterpart perceptually

Production of /i/ shows phonetic transfer from Mandarin Chinese

Perceptual competence does not significantly mitigate phonetic transfer

Abstract

The current paper concerns language transfer at the phonetic level and concentrates on the transfer phenomenon in an advanced English language learner's acquisition of the English vowels /i/ and its lax counterpart. By determining whether the Chinese English-language learner (ELL), named Vanya, can accurately distinguish between /i/ and its lax counterpart, and pronounce them precisely in General American English (GAE), this paper serves as a reference for further studying language transfer among Chinese ELLs. There were two objectives: first, the learner's perceptual ability to distinguish between vowels /i/ and its lax counterpart was examined; second, the effect of the phonetic transfer was determined. Two perception tests and a production test were used to attain these two objectives. The results of two perception tests demonstrated Vanya's perceptual competence in distinguishing between /i/ and its lax counterpart and laid a solid foundation for the validity of the subsequent production test. Given that Vanya's production of F1 and F2 values of /i/ were highly similar across his first language (Mandarin Chinese) and second language (GAE) and that both values were lower than the typical values for common /i/ in GAE, with an especially prominent disparity between the F2 values, it is reasonable to conclude that a phonetic transfer occurred. The participant's high perceptual competence as an advanced-level ELL did not noticeably moderate the effect of phonetic transfer.