Acoustical analysis of English vowels produced by Chinese, Dutch and American speakers

The vowel systems of (Mandarin) Chinese (e.g. Wiese 1997), Dutch and American English differ considerably, both in the number of vowels in the inventory and in the details of their position within the articulatory vowel space, and possibly also in terms of their durational characteristics. When Dutch and Chinese nationals speak English as a foreign language, their pronunciation of English will deviate from the American native norm for English. As part of a larger research project, we are interested in a precise characterization of Chinese as opposed to Dutch-accented English, and in the question how these non-native varieties of English differ from the native norm. Our description of these three varieties of English will be based on objective rather than impressionistic data (as exemplified by textbooks such as Collins & Mees 1981). Specifically, we used acoustic measurements that are known to have clear correspondences with articulatory properties of vowels.