1. Results Tone study: Accuracy and error rates (percentage lower than 10% is omitted) Consonant study: Accuracy and error rates 3aSCb5. The categorical nature of tones and consonants: Evidence from second language perception and production Yen-Chen Hao & Kenneth de Jong ( yehao@indiana.edu & kdejong@indiana.edu) yehao@indiana.edukdejong@indiana.edu Department of Linguistics, Indiana University Main Points For second language learners, tone acquisition and consonant acquisition may impose difficulty on different types of language processing mechanisms. For tone acquisition, a major problem comes from associating pitch patterns with linguistic categories. For consonant acquisition, the difficulty may result from perception, production, or both. Introduction Comparing tones and consonants Tones are commonly considered to be psychologically equivalent to segments (Ladd, 1996: 1-2). But is it true? L2 acquisition of tones and consonants Current L2 speech models like Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1987) and Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best et al 1988) apply to segments. Previous studies on tone acquisition assessed either perception (Kiriloff 1969, Broselow et al. 1987) or production (Shen 1989, Miracle 1989), but not both. No studies used Mimicry task as a assessment. L2 learners’ performance in different tasks may differ, suggesting that each task requires different language processing mechanisms. Language processing mechanisms Audition: processing auditory input Articulation: motor control for output Linguistic categorization: association with conventional categories Different tasks involve different language processing mechanisms Question: If learners’ performance on different tasks reflects competence in different language processing mechanisms, are tone acquisition and consonant acquisition similar in terms of learners’ competence? Methods Comparing two SLA studies: Tone study (English → Chinese) Participants 10 English-speaking L2 learners of Mandarin Chinese Stimuli 4 Mandarin tones 1 /55/, 2 /35/, 3 /214/, 4 /51/ on 4 syllables /waŋ/, /ji/, /jo/, /ma/ Tasks 1. Identification: Subjects identified the tones of monosyllabic and disyllabic nonsense words using L2 tonal labels. 2. Reading: Subjects read aloud a list of monosyllabic and disyllabic nonsense words spelt in Pinyin plus tonal labels. Their responses were recorded. 3. Mimicry: Subjects repeated monosyllabic and disyllabic nonsense words immediately after hearing them. Their responses were recorded. Evaluation 2 Chinese native speakers judged independently the tone of each syllable produced in Reading and Mimicry tasks. Consonant study (Korean → English) Participants 4 Korean learners of English Target 8 English obstruents /p, b, t, d, f, v, θ, ð/ in different positions Tasks 1. Identification: Subjects identified the obstruents in nonsense words consisting of the vowel /a/ and one of the 8 obstruents in onset, intervocalic, or coda positions. 2. Reading: Similar as Tone study. 3. Mimicry: Similar as Tone study. Evaluation 10 English native speakers judged the consonant produced by Korean subjects in Reading and Mimicry tasks. Acknowledgements Work supported by the NSF (grant #BCS- 04406540 ). We also express appreciation to Mi-Hee Cho for help in collecting the consonant data and to Kyoko Nagao and Noah Silbert for their work on the design and processing of the data. Discussion t-test comparing the accuracy rates between pairs of tasks Tone learning For tones, L2 learners are exceptionally accurate in tone mimicry task, relative to tasks which require labeling Difficulty lies in the association of pitch patterns with the corresponding linguistic categories, even though learners have had extensive instruction in tone labels Reading errors tend to be specific to certain tone combinations, while ID errors tend to be more widespread Consonant learning For consonants, L2 learners’ Mimicry performance combines errors found in ID and Reading Difficulties apparently lie more in auditory perceptual and production system Reading errors tend to follow patterns predicted by transfer of native categories, while ID errors tend to be more idiosyncratic Why are different mechanisms problems for tones and consonants? Consonants served as the original example of categorical perception (Liberman et al, 1957) Stagray and Downs (1993) found that Chinese speakers made more categorical judgment to frequency changes, while English speakers made more gradient discrimination. In Xu et al. (2006), Chinese speakers showed categorical perception of a continuum of F0 contours, while English speakers did not.  Nature of tones may be less categorical, unless trained by linguistic experience. Conclusion 1.When acquiring tones, the problems mostly reside in linguistic categorization. While for consonant acquisition, the difficulty results from auditory perception, articulation or both, but not so obviously from linguistic categorization. 2.Tones may be inherently less categorical than consonants. 3.It is necessary to consider a variety of tasks in assessing linguistic competence. References Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., & Sithole, N. M. (1988). 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The 154 th Meeting of Acoustic Society of America in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 29, 2007 L1L2Target 1EnglishMandarin ChineseTones 2KoreanEnglishObstruents Tone 1Tone 2Tone 3 Tone 4 Study Pair ToneConsonant ID – Mimicry-5.103 **1.979 * Reading – Mimicry-4.534 **2.938 ** ID – Reading-0.860.162