Investigating Mandarin Tone and Focus Prosody Production in Hong Kong Cantonese Speakers

Second-language (L2) acquisition is influenced by the differences and similarities between a learner’s first language (L1) and their target language. Because prior research has shown that Cantonese and Mandarin speakers employ different acoustic strategies to express focus in speech, this study examines how Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC) speakers, who are L2 Mandarin speakers, produce Mandarin focus prosody. Twenty HKC speakers completed a tone identification-production task with 72 monosyllabic Mandarin words used in the main experiment. Based on how well they performed this task, they were divided into two proficiency groups. The members of both groups then performed a speech-production task in which they answered pre-recorded wh-questions, focusing on either a numeral (ANUM), or a noun phrase (ANP). The results showed that the sampled HKC speakers did not use the typically observed HKC focus-marking strategy when producing Mandarin focus, but instead adopted a new acoustic strategy consisting of partial Cantonese focus marking strategy (lengthening) and some post-focus F0 compression, when speakers have a higher level of Mandarin proficiency. The two proficiency groups’ acoustic approaches to expressing Mandarin focus differed from each other. These results represent an important contribution to our understanding of how HKC speakers perceive and produce Mandarin tone and prosody, and shed new light on L2 speech acquisition at both the suprasegmental and the sentential levels.