Cross-linguistic phonetic interference: The production and perception of L3 Japanese word-initial stops by Mandarin trilinguals

Abstract This study explored the acquisition of Japanese word-initial voiceless stops by Mandarin trilinguals with advanced proficiency in their third language Japanese. The relationship between their full-time equivalent (FTE) years of Japanese input and their production and perception of the target stops was also investigated. Mandarin trilinguals and Japanese bilinguals completed a production experiment by reading Japanese words with the target stops, and completed a perception experiment by listening to Japanese stop continua with synthetic stimuli varying in voice onset time (VOT) values. The results showed that the Mandarin trilinguals produced the target stops with longer VOT values than the Japanese bilinguals, and had perceptual category boundaries at longer VOT values than the bilinguals. The trilinguals’ production and perception skills revealed phonetic interference from both their native Mandarin and second language English. The correlation analysis between the trilinguals’ FTE and their mean VOT values and mean category boundaries indicated that longer FTE for trilinguals may not directly translate into target-like performance.