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Article published In:
Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報)
Vol. 55:1 (2020) ► pp.54–81

Hong Kong Cantonese university students’ tonal errors in Mandarin and their relation to L1 influence

| The Education University of Hong Kong
| The Education University of Hong Kong

After the change of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to People’s Republic of China, Mandarin has become increasingly important in Hong Kong society. However, it is observed that many native Cantonese speakers have problems mastering Mandarin tones despite the less complex tonal system. This study attempts to investigate the Mandarin tonal error patterns made by Hong Kong learners and the possible causes for these errors. A reading aloud test and a follow-up interview were designed to collect the data. The findings of the study show that a large number of students were confused about Mandarin tones and found them difficult to master, especially between tone 1 and tone 4 and tone 2 and tone 3. All the participants made these two mistakes in the test. This study hypothesizes that L1 negative transfer is the key factor that helps Cantonese speaking learners’ ability to establish a new tone in the L2. However, the reason for participants’ tonal mistakes is not due to one single cause; instead, the errors are caused by multiple factors, including lack of tonal knowledge, incomplete tonal acquisition, and tonal errors explained by the Speech Learning Model.

Keywords: speech learning model, Mandarin tones, L2 acquisition, contrastive analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Cantonese and Putonghua tones
      • 2.1.1Tone system of Cantonese
      • 2.1.2Tone system of Putonghua
    • 2.2L1 transfer on L2 acquisition
    • 2.3Speech perception models on L2 acquisition
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Instrument
    • 3.3Procedure
      • Stage 1.Pilot test
      • Stage 2.Reading aloud test
      • Stage 3.Results comparison and error categorization
      • Stage 4.Analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Types of tonal errors
      • 4.1.1Confusion of tones
      • 4.1.2Tone sandhi
      • 4.1.3Incomplete pronunciation
    • 4.2Interview results
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Errors explained by speech perception
    • 5.2Errors explained by language transfer
    • 5.3Teaching implications
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 26 March 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/csl.18022.che
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