Voice Onset Time (VOT) has been considered as one of the crucial methods for examining the timing of voicing in stop consonants in many languages. This study was designed to examine VOT production for phonetically voiceless stops of Mandarin and English by native Chinese speakers. Thirty-six Taiwanese Chinese speakers participated in this study. The results indicates that: 1) Based on the three universal categories proposed by Lisker and Abramson (1964)[1], for phonetically voiceless stops, Mandarin and English occupies the same place along the VOT continuum; 2) The mean VOT value for the apical stop /t/ is slightly lower than the mean value for the labial stop /p/. This does not conform to the general agreement, that is, the further back the place of articulation the longer VOT.; 3) The difference between the mean VOT values of English /p/ and /t/ produced by Chinese speakers is subtle, whereas the difference reaches significance for native English speakers. Therefore, it is suggested that first language (i.e. Chinese) could be a crucial factor affecting L2 (i.e. English) productions. Moreover, variations, both within and between speakers, could be further examined in future studies.
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机译：语音起音时间（VOT）被认为是检查多种语言中停止辅音发声时间的关键方法之一。这项研究旨在检查母语为汉语的人在语音上无声的普通话和英语中的VOT产生情况。 36位台湾华语使用者参加了这项研究。结果表明：1）基于Lisker和Abramson（1964）提出的三个通用类别[1]，对于语音上的无声停止，普通话和英语在VOT连续体上占据相同的位置; 2）根尖停止点/ t /的平均VOT值略低于唇尖停止点/ p /的平均值。这不符合总的协议，也就是说，铰接位置越靠后，VOT就越长。 3）中国人说英语的/ p /和/ t /的平均VOT值之间的差异是微妙的，而对于以英语为母语的人来说，该差异就变得很重要。因此，建议第一语言（即中文）可能是影响第二语言（即英语）生产的关键因素。而且，在将来的研究中，可以进一步研究说话者内部和之间的差异。
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