Duration Closure in the Wu Speakers'Production of English plosives

【摘要】：In the production of plosives,closure duration (CD) is one of the important features alongside voice onset time.CD can differ among plosives produced by native speakers,and they can also differ in the native and non-native production of the same plosives.This paper examines the CD of English plosives produced by the Wu Chinese speakers,and compares it with that produced by native speakers.It is found that the closure durations in the Wu speakers ESL production of the English plosivesìs in general longer than that by the native English speakers not only when the plosives are in the word-initial position,but also when they are in the word-final position.Additionally,when pronouncing the English voiceless plosives/p,t,k/,the Wu speakers often follow the CD order/p//t//k/in both positions.Native speakers on the other hand only follow this rule in the word initial position.The paper also addresses the role gender plays in the production of second language CD.