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The acquisition of coda consonants by Mandarin early child L2 learners of English*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2013

NAN XU RATTANASONE  and
KATHERINE DEMUTH
NAN XU RATTANASONE*
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, & Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
KATHERINE DEMUTH
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, & Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
*
Address for correspondence: Nan Xu, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Level 3, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University NSW 2109, Australianan.xu@mq.edu.au
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Abstract

Little is known about the acquisition of phonology in children learning a second language before the age of four. The study of Mandarin children's early learning of English coda consonants is of particular interest because of the different syllable structures permitted in the two languages. Using an elicited imitation task, this study explored the acquisition of coda consonants and related phrase-final lengthening in twelve three-year-old Mandarin-speaking children exposed to Australian English at preschool. Performance was good on /t/ and /s/ codas, but worse on the phonologically and morphologically more complex /ts/ coda. Although /n/ is one of the few codas permitted in Mandarin, both perceptual and acoustic analysis revealed surprisingly poor performance, suggesting possible L1 Mandarin effects. As expected, longer exposure to English resulted in better coda production. The results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms underlying L2 phonological and morphological acquisition in early child second language learners (ECL2).

Keywords

bilingual acquisition of phonologyEnglish coda consonantsMandarin-speaking childrenearly child L2 learners
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 646 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported, in part, by Macquarie University and the following grants: NIH R01HD057606, ARC DP110102479, and ARC CE110001021. We thank Felicity Cox for assistance with stimulus design and acoustic analysis, Alan Taylor for statistical assistance, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

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