ISCA Archive issp 2024
ISCA Archive issp 2024

Sibilant contrast production by bilingual speakers of Quanzhou Southern Min and Mandarin

Caihong Weng, Ioana Chitoran, Alexander Martin

The merger of the Mandarin [s]~[ù] contrast, known as “deretroflexion”, frequently occurs in Mandarin spoken by bilingual Southern Min speakers, whose L1 lacks the retroflex category. This study explores the production of the Mandarin alveolar-retroflex contrast by bilingual speakers of Quanzhou Southern Min (L1) and Mandarin (L2) in two different vowel contexts ([a] vs. [u]). Our bilingual speakers’ contrast production was evaluated using a perceptual identification task by L1 Mandarin speakers, showing only a small subset of our sample who maintained the [s]~[ù] contrast. We found significant Center of Gravity (CoG) differences between the two target fricatives for “distinctive” speakers, with this difference being larger in the context of [a] than [u]. For all speakers, the acoustic difference between the target fricatives increased with increased exposure to and use of Mandarin.