Mandarin Tone Acquisition as a Multimodal Learning Problem: Tone 3 Diacritic Manipulation

Abstract

Through a tone knowledge survey and tone identification training task, I explore the extent to which visual representation of tone affects tone identification and tone learning. I use T3 as a case study in understanding the extent to which visual representation affects identification. Recent work on tone learning suggests there may be a link between different multimodal cueing mechanisms and efficient learning of tones. McGinnis (1997) finds that Pinyin diacritics are one of the most effective representation systems for learning Mandarin tones. However, Pinyin is also historically used as a descriptive representation of native speaker phonological knowledge. The dual purpose of the visual representation systems of tone creates a tension between a descriptive model of tone and an L2 learning aid. T3 shows extreme variation from a full T3 that falls and rises to a low T3. Zhang (2018) claims that Mandarin learners are not taught about T3 low features. The first experiment in this study found that current Mandarin learners disproportionately lack explicit knowledge of T3 low features but not other T3 features or any other tones’ features. Next, a tone identification training task was conducted to see if changing the visualization of T3 to low T3 would affect the learning of T3 and other tones. Findings show that T3 and T2 identification improved in the condition where T3 is represented visually as a low tone rather than full tone. Together, these findings suggest that many Mandarin learners do not know about T3 low features and that learning T3 with a low-tone visualization can positively affect the identification of T3 and T2. Using multimodal means to improve the representation of T3 may help reduce confusion in early stages and remedy long term acquisition problems of T3 and T2.