23.5086, Diss: Phonetics/ Chinese, Mandarin: Chang: 'Variability in Cross-dialectal Production and Perception of Contrasting Phonemes...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-5086. Wed Dec 05 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.5086, Diss: Phonetics/ Chinese, Mandarin: Chang: 'Variability in Cross-dialectal Production and Perception of Contrasting Phonemes...'

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Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:50:04
From: YUNG-HSIANG CHANG [shawn914 at gmail.com]
Subject: Variability in Cross-dialectal Production and Perception of Contrasting Phonemes: The case of the alveolar-retroflex contrast in Beijing and Taiwan Mandarin

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Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Yung-Hsiang Chang

Dissertation Title: Variability in Cross-dialectal Production and Perception of 
Contrasting Phonemes: The case of the alveolar-retroflex
contrast in Beijing and Taiwan Mandarin 

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics

Subject Language(s): Chinese, Mandarin (cmn)


Dissertation Director(s):
Chilin Shih

Dissertation Abstract:

The alveolar-retroflex contrast is a critical feature in Mandarin and is often 
used to differentiate Beijing Mandarin from other dialects of Mandarin like 
Taiwan Mandarin. While a number of linguistic and sociolinguistic factors 
have been found to affect the alveolar-retroflex contrast, leading to variation 
in Taiwan Mandarin, a consistent alveolar-retroflex distinction is described for 
Beijing Mandarin in the literature on Mandarin phonology. With a series of 
map tasks, this dissertation examines whether the production of alveolar-
retroflex contrast in both dialects is subject to the effects of vowel context 
and focal prominence. With a discrimination task and a goodness rating task, 
the categorical and gradient modes of alveolar-retroflex perception in different 
vowel contexts are investigated for listeners of both dialects. Results of the 
production study indicate that the acoustic characterization of Beijing vs. 
Taiwan Mandarin alveolar-retroflex contrast varies by vowel and by how each 
contrasting phoneme is realized in a particular vowel context. Focal 
prominence is found to result in longer syllable durations but not increased 
spectral distinctiveness between the alveolar and retroflex sibilants. The 
findings are discussed with respect to enhancement theory. The perception 
study found that Beijing and Taiwan listeners have different perceptual 
boundaries along the acoustic continuum, with a lower cutoff frication 
frequency required for the retroflex percepts for Beijing listeners. Listeners’ 
alveolar-retroflex boundaries shift to lower frequencies in the rounded vowel 
context to normalize for vowel coarticulatory effects. Discrepant within-
category sensitivity was found in that while both Beijing and Taiwan listeners 
perceive all retroflex variants as equally good, Beijing listeners consider the 
endpoint variant of the alveolar as the best category exemplar. The findings 
are discussed within the frameworks of quantal theory and exemplar theory 
as well as with respect to the hyperspace effect in perception. Together, the 
results show that linguistic (i.e., vowel context) and sociolinguistic (i.e., 
dialect) factors collectively and variably affect the production and perception 
of the Mandarin alveolar-retroflex contrast.






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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-5086	
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