Cover not available

Article published In: Language and Linguistics
Vol. 20:4 (2019) ► pp.569–601

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

The role of lexical stress in spoken English word recognition by listeners of English and Taiwan Mandarin

 | National Sun Yat-sen University
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 24 October 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00049.ou
Abstract
Two perceptual experiments investigated how the suprasegmental information of monosyllables is perceived and exploited in spoken English word recognition by listeners of English and Taiwan Mandarin (TM). Using an auditory lexical decision task in which correctly stressed English words and mis-stressed nonwords (e.g. camPAIGN vs. *CAMpaign) were presented for lexical decisions, Experiment I demonstrated that TM listeners could perceive the differences between stressed and unstressed syllables with native-like accuracy and rapidity. To examine how the perceived suprasegmental contrast would constrain English lexical access, Experiment II was conducted. It used a cross-modal fragment priming task in which a lexical decision had to be made for a visually presented English word or nonword following an auditory prime, which was a spoken word-initial syllable. The results showed that English and TM listeners recognized the displayed word (e.g. campus) faster both after a stress-matching (e.g. CAM-) prime and a stress-mismatching (e.g. cam-) prime than after a control prime (e.g. MOUN-, with mismatching segments). This indicates that suprasegmental information does not inhibit a segmentally matching but suprasegmentally mismatching word candidate for both the two groups, although TM is a language where lexical prosody is expressed syllabically and its listeners tend to interpret lexical stress tonally. Yet, the two groups’ responses were slower after the stressed primes than after the unstressed ones, presumably because the former generally had more possible continuations than the latter do. It is therefore concluded that when recognizing spoken English words, both the native and non-native (TM-speaking) listeners can exploit the suprasegmental cues of monosyllables, which, however, are not so effective that they will outweigh the segmental cues.
Article outline
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2.Spoken word recognition: The role of lexical stress
  • 3.Experiment I: Auditory lexical decision task
    • 3.1Materials
    • 3.2Acoustic analysis
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Participants
    • 3.5Results
  • 4.Experiment II: Cross-modal fragment priming task
    • 4.1Materials
    • 4.2Acoustic analysis
    • 4.3Procedure
    • 4.4Participants
    • 4.5Results
  • 5.General discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (73)
References
Altmann, Heidi. 2006. The perception and production of second language stress: A cross-linguistic experimental study. Newark: University of Delaware. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Altmann, Heidi & Vogel, Irene. 2002. L2 acquisition of stress: The role of L1. (Paper presented at the DGfS Annual Meeting, Mannheim, 27 February-1 March 2002.)
Archibald, John. 1997. The acquisition of English stress by speakers of nonaccentual languages: Lexical storage versus computation of stress. Linguistics 35(1). 167–181. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald & Piepenbrock, Richard & van Rijn, Hedderik. 1993. The CELEX database (CD-ROM). Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve. 2015. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67(1). 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Best, Catherine T. 1994. The emergence of native-language phonological influence in infants: A perceptual assimilation model. In Goodman, Judith C. & Nusbaum, Howard C. (eds.), The transition from speech sounds to spoken words: The development of speech perception, 167–224. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David. 2016. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 6.0.14). ([URL]) (Accessed 2016-02-11).
Bond, Zinny S. & Small, Larry H. 1983. Voicing, vowel, and stress mispronunciations in continuous speech. Perception & Psychophysics 34(5). 470–474. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Booij, Geert E. 1995. The phonology of Dutch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Broersma, Mirjam & Cutler, Anne. 2008. Phantom word activation in L2. System 36(1). 22–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Competition dynamics of second-language listening. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 64(1). 74–95. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen-ren. 1968. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, Chin-chuan. 1968. English stresses and Chinese tones in Chinese sentences. Phonetica 18(2). 77–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chrabaszcz, Anna & Winn, Matthew B. & Lin, Candise Y. & Idsardi, William J. 2014. Acoustic cues to perception of word stress by English, Mandarin, and Russian speakers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 57(4). 1468–1479. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Connine, Cynthia M. & Blasko, Dawn G. & Wang, Jian. 1994. Vertical similarity in spoken word recognition: Multiple lexical activation, individual differences, and the role of sentence context. Perception and Psychophysics 56(6). 624–636. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooper, Nicole & Cutler, Anne & Wales, Roger. 2002. Constraints of lexical stress on lexical access in English: Evidence from native and non-native listeners. Language and Speech 45(3). 207–228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crowther, Court S. & Mann, Virginia. 1992. Native language factors affecting use of vocalic cues to final consonant voicing in English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 92(2). 711–722. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne. 1986. Forbear is a homophone: Lexical prosody does not constrain lexical access. Language and Speech 29(3). 201–220. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Butterfield, Sally. 1992. Rhythmic cues to speech segmentation: Evidence from juncture misperception. Journal of Memory and Language 31(2). 218–236. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Carter, David M. 1987. The predominance of strong initial syllables in the English vocabulary. Computer Speech & Language 2(3). 133–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Chen, Hsuan-chih. 1997. Lexical tone in Cantonese spoken-word processing. Perception and Psychophysics 59(2). 165–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Norris, Dennis. 1988. The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14(1). 113–121.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Otake, Takashi. 2004. Pseudo-homophony in non-native listening. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 115(5). 2392. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Pasveer, Dennis. 2006. Explaining cross-linguistic differences in effects of lexical stress on spoken-word recognition. In Hoffman, Rüdiger & Mixdorff, Hansjörg (eds.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Speech Prosody, 250–254. Dresden: TUD press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Wales, Roger & Cooper, Nicole & Janssen, Joris. 2007. Dutch listeners’ use of suprasegmental cues to English stress. In Barry, William J. & Trouvain, Jürgen (eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVI), 1913–1916. Saarbrücken: Universität des Saarlandes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne & Weber, Andrea & Otake, Takashi. 2006. Asymmetric mapping from phonetic to lexical representations in second-language listening. Journal of Phonetics 34(2). 269–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dupoux, Emmanuel & Pallier, Christophe & Sebastián-Gallés, Núria & Mehler, Jacques. 1997. A destressing “deafness” in French? Journal of Memory and Language 36(3). 406–421. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dupoux, Emmanuel & Sebastián-Gallés, Núria & Navarrete, Eduardo & Peperkamp, Sharon. 2008. Persistent stress “deafness”: The case of French learners of Spanish. Cognition 106(2). 682–706. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fear, Beverley D. & Cutler, Anne & Butterfield, Sally. 1995. The strong/weak syllable distinction in English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97(3). 1893–1904. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flege, James E. 1995. Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, Winifred (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research, 233–277. Timonium: York Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fry, Dennis B. 1955. Duration and intensity as physical correlates of linguistic stress. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 27(4). 765–768. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gaskell, M. Gareth & Marslen-Wilson, William D. 2002. Representation and competition in the perception of spoken words. Cognitive Psychology 45(2). 220–266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gay, Thomas. 1978. Physiological and acoustic correlates of perceived stress. Language and Speech 21(4). 347–353. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldinger, Stephen D. & Luce, Paul A. & Pisoni, David B. 1989. Priming lexical neighbors of spoken words: Effects of competition and inhibition. Journal of Memory and Language 28(5). 501–518. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iverson, Paul & Kuhl, Patricia K. & Akahane-Yamada, Reiko & Diesch, Eugen & Tohkura, Yoh’ich & Kettermann, Andreas & Siebert, Claudia. 2003. A perceptual interference account of acquisition difficulties for non-native phonemes. Cognition 87(1). B47–B57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Juffs, Alan. 1990. Tone, syllable structure and interlanguage phonology: Chinese learners’ stress errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 28(2). 99–117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kochanski, Greg & Orphanidou, Christina. 2008. What marks the beat of speech? The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123(5). 2780–2791. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Chao-yang. 2007. Does horse activate mother? Processing lexical tone in form priming. Language and Speech 50(1). 101–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse. 1972. The timing of utterances and linguistic boundaries. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 51(6B). 2018–2024. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luce, R. Duncan. 1986. Response times: Their role in inferring elementary mental organization. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lukyanchenko, Anna & Idsardi, William J. & Jiang, Nan. 2011. Opening your ears: The role of L1 in processing of nonnative prosodic contrasts. In Granena, Gisela & Koeth, Joel & Lee-Ellis, Sunyoung & Lukyanchenko, Anna & Prieto Botana, Goretti & Rhoades, Elizabeth (eds.), Selected proceedings of the Second Language Research Forum 2010, 50–62. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, William D. 1980. Speech understanding as a psychological process. In Simon, Jean-Claude (ed.), Spoken Language Generation and Understanding, 39–67. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1990. Activation, competition, and frequency in lexical access. In Altmann, Gerry T. M. (ed.), Cognitive models of speech processing: Psycholinguistic and computational perspectives, 148–172. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, William D. & Warren, Paul. 1994. Levels of perceptual representation and process in lexical access: Words, phonemes, and features. Psychological Review 101(4). 653–675. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, William D. & Zwitserlood, Pienie. 1989. Accessing spoken words: The importance of word onsets. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 15(3). 576–585.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McQueen, James M. & Norris, Dennis & Cutler, Anne. 1999. Lexical influence in phonetic decision making: Evidence from subcategorical mismatches. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 25(5). 1363–1389.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nakatani, Lloyd H. & Dukes, Kathleen D. 1977. Locus of segmental cues for word juncture. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 62(3). 714–719. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Dennis & McQueen, James M. & Cutler, Anne. 1995. Competition and segmentation in spoken-word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21(5). 1209–1228.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ou, Shu-chen. 2010. Taiwanese EFL learners’ perception of English word stress. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 36(1). 1–23.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Perception of English lexical stress with a marked pitch accent by native speakers of Mandarin. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 14(2). 1–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peperkamp, Sharon. 1997. Prosodic words (HIL Dissertations 34). The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peperkamp, Sharon & Dupoux, Emmanuel. 2002. A typological study of stress “deafness”. Laboratory Phonology 71. 203–240.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Psychology Software Tools. 2012. E-Prime 2.0. (Computer Software) Pittsburgh: Author.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2015. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. ([URL]).
Rastle, Kathleen & Harrington, Jonathan & Coltheart, Max. 2002. 358, 534 nonwords: The ARC nonword database. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section A 55(4). 1339–1362. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schaefer, Vance & Darcy, Isabelle. 2014. Lexical function of pitch in the first language shapes cross-linguistic perception of Thai tones. Laboratory Phonology 5(4). 489–522. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slowiaczek, Louisa M. 1990. Effects of lexical stress in auditory word recognition. Language and Speech 33(1). 47–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Small, Larry H. & Simon, Stephen D. & Goldberg, Jill S. 1988. Lexical stress and lexical access: Homographs and non-homographs. Perception and Psychophysics 44(3). 272–280. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
So, Connie K. & Best, Catherine T. 2010. Cross-language perception of non-native tonal contrasts: Effects of native phonological and phonetic influences. Language and Speech 53(2). 273–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soto-Faraco, Salvador & Sebastián-Gallés, Núria & Cutler, Anne. 2001. Segmental and suprasegmental mismatch in lexical access. Journal of Memory and Language 45(3). 412–432. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swinney, David A. 1979. Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18(6). 645–659. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Takagi, Naoyuki. 1995. Signal detection modeling of Japanese listeners’ /r/–/l/ labeling behavior in a one-interval identification task. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97(1). 563–574. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tremblay, Annie. 2008. Is second language lexical access prosodically constrained? Processing of word stress by French Canadian second language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics 29(4). 553–584. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Donselaar, Wilma & Koster, Mariëtte & Cutler, Anne. 2005. Exploring the role of lexical stress in lexical recognition. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A 58(2). 251–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Heuven, Vincent J. 1985. Perception of stress pattern and word recognition: Recognition of Dutch words with incorrect stress position. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 781. S21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Leyden, Klaske & van Heuven, Vincent J. 1996. Lexical stress and spoken word recognition: Dutch vs. English. Linguistics in the Netherlands 13(1). 159–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vitevitch, Michael S. 2007. The spread of the phonological neighborhood influences spoken word recognition. Memory & Cognition 35(1). 166–175. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vroomen, Jean & de Gelder, Béatrice. 1995. Metrical segmentation and lexical inhibition in spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 21(1). 98–108.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Qian. 2008a. Perception of English stress by Mandarin Chinese learners of English: An acoustic study. Victoria: University of Victoria. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008b. L2 stress perception: The reliance on different acoustic cues. In Barbosa, Plinio A. & Madureira, Sandra & Reis, César (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Speech Prosody, 635–638.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woodward, Julide Z. & Aslin, Richard N. 1990. Segmentation cues in maternal speech to infants. (Paper presented at the 7th biennial meeting of the International Conference on Infant Studies, Montreal, April 1990.)
Zwitserlood, Pienie. 1989. The locus of the effects of sentential-semantic context in spoken-word processing. Cognition 32(1). 25–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Gu, Lei & Wenrui Zhang
2025. The role of phonology in processing English suffixed words by Chinese–English bilinguals. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12:1 DOI logo
Guo, Chunfeng & Kapil Sharma
2022. Intelligent Voice System Design for Optimizing E-Business Advertising Rhetoric Based on SVM Algorithm. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience 2022 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Ma, Hongjuan & Sang-Bing Tsai
2021. The Technique of English Word Syllable Division in Speech Synthesis Based on Neural Network. Mathematical Problems in Engineering 2021 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue