Spectral analysis of English voiced palato-alveolar fricative /Ʒ/ produced by Chinese WU Speakers

In this study we investigated the production of English voiced palato-alveolar fricative /Ʒ/ by Chinese Wu speakers through statistically analyzing two spectral parameters of the native and accented sounds. Results showed that the voiced accented-/Ʒ/ was significantly influenced by voiceless /ɕ/ rather than by voiced /Ʒ/ in Wu dialect; the female Wu speakers tended to over-palatalize the accented sound, suggesting that females might be more influenced by social stereotype than the males in second language acquisition; students with higher level of English were more susceptible to Wu dialect compared to those with lower level of English, indicating that better phonological awareness does not necessarily lead to higher accuracy in phonetic production.