Assessing the accuracy of production of Cantonese lexical tones: a comparison between perceptual judgement and an instrumental measure

Abstract

The assessment of the accuracy of Cantonese tone production can be performed by either perceptual judgement or an instrumental measure. The latter method, however, has not been investigated in detail. In particular, the relationship between perceptual judgement and an instrumental measure has not been fully delineated. The present study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between perceptual judgement and instrumental measures of tones. Perceptual and instrumental data from an experimental group of 15 adults (mean age = 33.5 years, SD = 13.1) were tested against a set of normative data which was provided by a control group of 56 young adults (mean age = 20.9 years; SD = 1.1) who were judged to be free from speech and tone production errors. The results revealed that six of the 15 adults in the experimental group were found to have tone production errors, mainly in tone 2/tone 5 confusion. A comparison of results obtained from the two assessment methods indicated that the instrumental measure was not only as good as perceptual judgement in assessing tone production, but it also provided a quantitative analysis of tones. The instrumental measure developed in the present study holds promise as a viable alternative to the perceptual assessment of Cantonese tones.