This study is a case study of the effects of tonal L1 on the acquisition of tonal L2, comparing two groups of tonal L1 learners, namely, Chinese Zhuang (C+Z) and Chinese non-Zhuang (C-Z) in the same classroom. The two groups of learners read aloud 60 words from a Thai wordlist, then their tone production was analyzed in two dimensions. The…

This article extends Optimality Theoretic studies to the research on second language tone phonology. Specifically, this work analyses the acquisition of identical tone sequences in Mandarin Chinese by adult speakers of three non-tonal languages: English, Japanese and Korean. This study finds that the learners prefer not to use identical lexical…

We designed two experiments to investigate subsyllabic unit preference in reading Pinyin in Chinese kindergarteners. Pinyin is an alphabetic transcription used in Mainland China to assist children in learning to read Chinese characters. In Pinyin instruction, teachers rely heavily on onset-rime division. Spoken Chinese, however, encourages…