Content area
This study examines the roles of domain-general auditory processing (i.e., lower-order abilities to perceive acoustic dimensions) and proficiency in second language (L2) learners? perception of Mandarin Chinese prosody (i.e., lexical tones and intonation). Forty-five English-speaking, L2 learners of Mandarin participated in the study and completed a series of tasks, including: two AXB discrimination tests (i.e., duration and pitch) assessing domain-general auditory processing abilities, a word-based lexical decision task measuring L2 Mandarin proficiency, two Mandarin lexical tone identification tasks in clear and low-pass filtered (LPF) speech, and two Mandarin intonation perception tasks in clear and LPF speech. Accuracy in tone identification, along with accuracy and reaction time (RT) in intonation perception, were analyzed using inferential statistics. The results showed that domain-general auditory processing significantly predicted tone identification and intonation perception accuracy in both speech conditions. Learners with more precise auditory processing performed better at identifying tones and perceiving intonation in Mandarin. L2 proficiency significantly influenced tone identification only in the clear speech condition, but not in the LPF speech condition or in either of the intonation tasks. Neither auditory processing ability, nor L2 proficiency, significantly influenced RT for intonation perception. These findings provide new evidence for the importance of domain-general auditory processing in the acquisition of L2 Mandarin prosody. L2 proficiency, however, played a limited role in the perception of Mandarin prosody. Taken together, the results suggest that learners? individual differences in auditory processing are strongly associated with successful L2 speech learning.