Dissertation project

This doctoral project investigates rhythmic transfer in third language (L3) phonological acquisition from a psycholinguistic and acoustic perspective. It focuses on Mandarin-speaking learners with English as their second language (L2) and examines how they acquire the rhythmic properties of German and Spanish as L3s. Using quantitative measures such as %V and nPVI-V, the study analyzes cross-linguistic influence from both L1 and L2, as well as the role of typological similarity and proficiency. The project aims to contribute to current models of multilingual phonological acquisition and to provide empirical insights for rhythm-based pronunciation teaching.