Development Of Phonetic Categorical Perception Of Lexical Tones By Korean Leaners Of Mandarin Chinese

Previous work has not yielded clear conclusion about the acquisition rules and characteristics of the second language acquisition learners.We reopen this issue in a perception study comparing between Korean native speakers of different learning duration of Chinese Mandarin.Based on the identification and discrimination of the primary and advanced levels of Korean native speakers as subjects and disyllabic words with different positions of target words as experimental words,we examin the perception of Mandarin tone 1 and tone3 in disyllabic words and analyze the location of the identification boundaries,boundary width,regression coefficients,discrimination peak and the type of the perception by drawing charts and data analysis.Finally,we briefly analyze the development of perception and its causes.The results show there is a similar tendency of perception between primary level Korean native speakers and the advanced level Korean native speakers,that is,the participants have a great sense of listening space of T1 in front-contrast continua while have a great sense of listening space of T3 in back-contrast continua,which indicates the dynamic characteristics of T3 perception.However,the perception of T1/T3 in Mandarin belongs to continuous perception for the participants at the primary level while belongs to category perception for participants at advanced level.It is also indicated that the ability of category perception has been obtained generally that the width of the boundary is gradually reduced,the regression coefficient progressively increased,the peak value is increased by degrees and peaks have basically corresponded to boundaries after the immersion learning for a certain period of time.However,compared with Chinese native speakers,the width of boundary of advanced participants is still larger than that of Chinese native speakers which means that there is still a difference between second language speakers of advanced level and Chinese native speakers,which indicates that the fossilization in second language acquisition.The main factors causing the above results include language perception factors and language acquisition factors.Tail supports and the tone of reference words take the leading factors to the language perception.The reduction factors and the role of the hearing compensation mechanism caused by the change of the linguistic sound also affect the category listening of second listeners.In terms of language acquisition factors,according to the second language acquisition theory of mother tongue magnetic attraction model,the native speakers of Korean are able to be more successful in the establishment of tone perception than those native speakers of tone languages.The duration of learning Chinese has a positive effect on the establishment of phonological perceptions for second language learners.As the length of immersion study increases,Korean native speakers gradually establish the category perception of T1/T3 in Mandarin.