The perception of the English alveolar-velar nasal coda contrast by monolingual versus bilingual Chinese speakers

Relatively little research has addressed the role of LI in the perception of English speech contrasts by Chinese learners of English as L3. The present study investigates the role of LI in the perception of the English alveolar-velar nasal coda contrast (/n/ vs. /η/) after the vowels /i Λ ae/ by bilingual Changsha Chinese speakers, whose LI is Changsha Chinese and L2 is Standard Mandarin. Changsha Chinese only permits an alveolar nasal coda /n/, while Standard Mandarin permits both final /n/ and /η/. We examined whether or not monolingual Standard Mandarin speakers and bilingual Changsha Chinese speakers perceived the English nasal coda contrast equally well. To investigate this, 15 bilingual Changsha Chinese speakers were tested, as well as 15 monolingual Standard Mandarin speakers as a control group. The Standard Mandarin speakers outperformed the bilingual Changsha Chinese speakers, suggesting that the L1 of the Changsha speakers interfered with their perception of the English nasal coda contrast. Besides, it was revealed that the preceding vowel affected the discrimination of the English nasal coda contrast, and that the perception of target nasal codas (/n/ or /η/) was influenced by specific vowels.