Purpose: Auditory training is important in pedagogical and clinical settings. In search of a more effective perceptual program for training new suprasegmental categories, this study examined the effect of two auditory programs that incorporated five elements that have previously been identified to be effective for training nonnative segmental and…

The current study examined the phonolexical processing of Mandarin segments and tones by English speakers at different Mandarin proficiency levels. Eleven English speakers naive to Mandarin, 15 intermediate and 9 advanced second language (L2) learners participated in a word-learning experiment. After learning the sound and meaning of 16 Mandarin…

Purpose: This research compared individuals from two first language (L1) backgrounds (English and Japanese) to determine how they may differ in their perception of Mandarin tones (Tones 1 vs. 2 [T1-T2], Tones 1 vs. 3 [T1-T3], Tones 1 vs. 4 [T1-T4], Tones 2 vs. 3 [T2-T3], Tones 2 vs. 4 [T2-T4], Tones 3 vs. 4 [T3-T4]) on account of their L1. Method:…

Successful listening in a second language (L2) involves learning to identify the relevant acoustic-phonetic dimensions that differentiate between words in the L2, and then use these cues to access lexical representations during real-time comprehension. This is a particularly challenging goal to achieve when the relevant acoustic-phonetic…

Purpose: Although variability of training materials has the potential to benefit the learning of lexical tones, the benefit is contingent on an individual's pitch aptitude. Previous studies did not segregate immediate learning and consolidation after an overnight interval, and little is known about how pitch aptitude differences affect…

This dissertation presents three studies that examined issues related to the production and the perception of pitch in a tone language. The first study examined linguistic contexts that may modulate consonant-induced pitch perturbations (CF0) in a tone language. Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding the role of linguistic…

This paper investigates the phonology of L2 speech and its impact on intelligibility in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) contexts. Many studies have considered speaker-related characteristics, such as speech styles and pronunciation features, that influence the intelligibility of L2 speech for both nonnative speakers (NNS) and native speakers…

While it is well established that non-native speakers differ from native speakers in their perception and/or production of Mandarin lexical tones, empirical studies focusing on non-native "learners" are still limited. The objective of this study is to add to the current understanding of lexical tone perception by comparing native…

In this dissertation, I investigated how cognitive resources as well as formal, and informal language experience impact language learning in two studies. In the first study (Chapter 2), I examined the learning of Spanish grammatical gender by Chinese international students who were studying abroad in the US. The goal of that study was to uncover…

Recent psycholinguistic findings showed that (a) a multi-modal phonetic training paradigm that encodes visual, interactive information is more effective in training L2 learners' perception of novel categories, (b) decreasing the acoustic variance of a phonetic dimension allows the learners to more effectively shift the perceptual weight towards…