Author: Wenqing, Zhang

Annotation: This study employs an acoustic experiment to investigate the acquisition of trisyllabic tone sequences by advanced Thai learners of Mandarin. The results show that these learners exhibit several problems in tone production: the pitch level of Tone 1 tends to be lower than expected, the contour of Tone 2 often appears flattened, the final syllable of Tone 3 is incomplete, and the pitch range of Tone 4 is compressed. Moreover, contextual factors and combination patterns were found to have little influence on the learners’performance in trisyllabic tone acquisition.

Keywords: Thai learners; trisyllabic sequences; acoustic experiment; tone errors; tone trisyllabic context; contextual factors; combinatorial relations; acquisition study

Pages in journal: 887 - 902