Analysis of tone errors in the acquisition of Chinese among Ugandan L2 speakers

Abstract

The acquisition of Chinese tones by Ugandan L2 speakers remains insufficiently studied. In teaching practice, Ugandan L2 speakers of Chinese persistently struggled to produce tones in isolated syllables, disyllabic words and tone-conditioned environments. Therefore, the study aimed at analyzing tone production errors made by Ugandan L2 speakers of Chinese by identifying these errors and describing their distribution. The study was guided by the Pitch Perception Model. The scope of analysis covered the production of monosyllabic tones, disyllabic tone combinations, and tone-conditioning environments such as yi 'one', bu 'not', and neutral tone. Speech was recorded from 19 intermediate participants from six first-language backgrounds (Luganda, Lusoga, Lugisu, Runyankore, Samia, and Lugbarati), and the resulting recordings provided the data. The data were analyzed acoustically against a native Mandrin Chinese baseline using F0 contour, pitch-range excursion, and duration as the main descriptive measures. The findings show that tonal errors were systematic rather than random. The overall difficulty hierarchy in production of Chinese tone by Ugandan speakers of Chinese was observed in the production of Tone 2, Tone 3, Tone 4, and Tone 1 of Chinese, with the most persistent instability concentrated in the Tone 2 and Tone 3 contrast. Recurrent error patterns included contour overshoot, truncation of Tone 3, delayed rise onset in Tone 2, duration compression, citation-form persistence in sandhi environments (i.e., context-conditioned tone alternation), and failure to reduce neutral tone appropriately. Error distribution also varied accross L1 backgrounds and become more pronounced in disyllabic and morphophonemic contexts. The study argues that these patterns are explained through Pitch Perception Model (PPM), since tone-production difficulty was closely related to perceptual salience, contour complexity, pitch-register control, temporal support, and contextual tone pressure. The study contributes empirical evidence from an underrepresented Ugandan context and suggests that Chinese tone instruction should prioritize the Tone 2 and Tone 3 contrast, contour timing, and context-sensitive tonal realization.