Intonation of Mandarin speakers in their English as a Foreign language

Does the prosody of speakers' first language (L1) influence their prosody in their second language (L2)? The current work investigates this for tone languages (Beijing Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin) as L1, and an intonation/stress language, English, as L2. English uses F0 contours in the intonation system, to signal syllabic prominence in a word, word prominence in a phrase, and the difference between questions and statements. In English, there is a pitch peak delay, where the F0 peak occurs after the stressed syllable in two-syllable stress-initial words. Conversely, tone languages use F0 contours lexically, and in the case of Mandarin, the F0 peak is on the stressed syllable. Thus, F0 measurements were taken from three subject groups (Beijing Mandarin L1, Taiwanese Mandarin L1 and Native English) who produced narrow and broad focus statements and questions, to learn if the Mandarin speakers lack pitch peak delay in English like in their L1, or delay some of their pitch peaks beyond the corresponding syllable offset, like English speakers. Further, all groups produced contrastive focus statements and questions, to see to what degree differences in the L1 system impact L2 production, as Beijing and Taiwanese Mandarin differ in these structures. Data analysis is ongoing.