Acoustic Analysis of English Codas by Mandarin Learners of English

Mandarin has a much more limited segmental inventory than English, and permits only nasals in coda position, presenting a challenge for learners of English. However, previous studies have mainly explored this issue using perceptual transcription. This study provides an acoustic analysis of coda consonant productions by Mandarin L2 learners of Australian English. The results indicate that they produced voiceless stop and fricative codas well, but exhibit considerable difficulty with voicing contrasts and coda clusters. These findings and their theoretical implications for current models of L2 learning are discussed.