方言資訊對中文平捲音對比之影響

The Influence of Dialect Information on the Perception of the Mandarin Alveolar-Retroflex Contrast

社會感知文獻指出，聽者對於說話者方言背景的主觀認定，會造成聽者對相同語音有不同的感知。有鑒於這些研究僅只探討母音，本研究用台灣華語和北京普通話裡平捲音對比，來探討摩擦音感知是否也存在類似的感知調適現象。實驗中透過方言標籤（北京或台灣）的操弄，進行對聽者/ʂa-sa/和/ʂu-su/的語音連續體的辨識測驗。結果顯示，方言標籤的操弄並未影響聽者的語音辨識決定。方言既定印象和方言態度也未對辨識結果造成顯著影響。方言標籤未對中文摩擦音感知造成影響，可能跟本研究未控制聽者的平捲音產成能力有關，也有可能是中文摩擦音訊號裡欠缺辨別方言的資訊。有鑒於先前研究亦提出社會索引訊息未總是能造成語音感知調適，本研究建議未來相關研究需探討語音感知調適是否存在先決條件（如：受試者相關變因之控制、 刺激材料類別之選擇）。

Socioperceptual research has shown that speech perception can be biased by the perceived dialect of a speaker. While these studies have focused on vowels, the current study investigates whether fricative perception exhibits similar dialect effects. The Mandarin alveolar-retroflex contrast, often used for distinguishing between Beijing and Taiwan Mandarin, was the manipulated feature. When presented with a Beijing or Taiwan label, Beijing and Taiwanese listeners identified various tokens along the /ʂa-sa/ and /ʂu-su/ continua. The results showed no evidence that the dialect labels affected listeners' responses. The roles of dialect stereotypes and attitudes were also examined, but none of these variables influenced the identification results. The absence of dialect labeling effects in fricative perception may be due to the lack of control of the participants' alveolar and retroflex production, and to the limited dialect-distinguishing cues contained in Mandarin fricatives alone. In light of other research which also reported limited evidence for social information on perception, it is suggested that future research should investigate under what circumstances (e.g., control of listener variables, choice of stimuli) such dialect labeling effects in consonant perception might be expected.