<![CDATA[This study investigates how a non‑standard romanization system used in a private Indonesian training institution shapes the production of Mandarin affricates by Indonesian Migrant Workers (IMW) in Taiwan. It asks how L1‑based spellings interact with Indonesian phonology to produce systematic deviations in Mandarin affricate interlanguage. A descriptive case study was conducted with five female workers, a purposively bounded sample reflecting the female-dominated composition of the caregiving sector in which they are employed, combining acoustic analysis of /z/, /c/, /j/, /q/, /zh/, /ch/ measuring Voice Onset Time (VOT), Frication Duration (FD), and Center of Gravity (CoG) with semi‑structured interviews and analysis of the training module. The results show pervasive over‑aspiration of non‑aspirated affricates, variable aspiration of aspirated segments, and consistent dentalization of retroflex affricates, indicating a collapse of aspiration contrasts and a shift toward alveolar/dental articulations. Module inspection reveals that modified romanization visually maps Mandarin affricates onto Indonesian graphemes for /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, while interviews indicate a strong reliance on these spellings and hyper articulation strategies. The study concludes that local romanization, L1 phonology, and communicative pressures jointly foster a fossilized interlanguage affricate system, and argues for revising romanization practices and integrating explicit articulatory instruction and feedback in migrant worker Mandarin training.]]>
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