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Phonetic Accommodation as an Important Force for Tone Evolution
LIU Huangmei, CAI Yining
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8080/2025.11.009
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
Phonetic accommodation is defined as a phenomenon that speakers spontaneously adjust their speech when talking to another talker, which could lead a result of convergence (being more similar to the counterpart) or divergence (being more different from the counterpart). When hearing a new sound, no matter the hearer chooses to spontaneously imitate the new sound or stay different with it, he or she will always play a role in the progress of language development. The decision of the hearer either could become a new trend of sound change, or could reinforce the prestige of the original one. Hence phonetic accommodation of the speakers in contact is one of the powerful forces that drive our language into sound changes. Therefore, the present study investigated the role of phonetic accommodations as a potential force on Mandarin tone change. Our finding suggest that phonetic accommodations do seem to be an important force for Mandarin tone evolution, while it could be affected by various of factors, such as age, gender, social statues, and other social factors, linguistic experience, stage of a change in progress, motor activation condition, cognitive sensitivity, and other cognitive factors.
tone evolution, phonetic accommodation, speech imitation, cognition
LIU Huangmei & CAI Yining, Phonetic Accommodation as an Important Force for Tone Evolution. US-China Foreign Language, November 2025, Vol. 23, No. 11, 433-437 doi:10.17265/1539-8080/2025.11.009
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