Acoustic analysis of English vowel contrast by age and gender among Mainland Chinese speakers

Abstract

The rapid growth of English language learners in Mainland China and of Chinese students in English-medium institutions of higher education has sparked scholarly interest in Chinese English (CE). Yet, from a phonetic perspective, few studies have examined how age and gender affect the production of CE vowels, despite research showing that these factors are important for understanding phonetic variation. This includes differences in English vowel quality and length. To address this gap, this quantitative study acoustically examined vowel contrast in English monophthongs among 23 male and female participants from two age groups comprising English majors and teachers from a public university in Mainland China. Participants read two passages from which 3481 monophthongs were extracted. The first (F1) and second (F2) formants and durations from the recordings were acoustically measured using Praat and statistically analyzed using R. The findings revealed a consistent lack of vowel quality and length contrast across age and gender groups for typical vowel pairs. These findings echo previous studies suggesting that this pattern is becoming a common feature of CE. In terms of the vowel space, the vowels produced by older and female speakers were more spread out in the vowel space compared to those of younger speakers. This could indicate more carefully produced pronunciation among these groups of speakers. The findings of this study enhance our understanding of the evolutionary process of CE, an emerging variety of English, and can inform English pronunciation teaching and learning in Mainland China.