Interlanguage Rhythmic Patterns and the Tone Effects on Learning Chinese for Native Speakers of English

• Main Authors: Lin-Wan Wu, 吳羚菀
• Other Authors: Hua-Li Jian
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/35160492585843627804

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 外國語文學系碩博士班 === 97 === The major goals of this thesis are: (a) to find whether and how the rhythmic patterns would influence native speakers of English speaking Chinese, and (b) to explore the difference in tone production and stress positions between native speakers of English and native speakers of Chinese. This comparison of two languages is crucial and valuable on language acquisition because Chinese and English are rhythmically and typologically different in their prosodic properties: Chinese is a tone language with syllable-timed oriented rhythm, and English is a stress-timed language. The acoustic experiment was conducted to investigate the rhythmic patterns and tonal effects on learning Chinese for native speakers of English. The experiment was designed to measure and compare several sound patterns. These patterns were: syllable duration, vowel duration, four tones production (tone1/ high tone, tone2/ rising tone, tone3/ low tone, and tone4/ falling tone), downstep effects, stress positions, and trochaic patterns. Two groups of subjects were recruited to produce a famous Chinese fable, including 8 native speakers of English (NS-E) and 8 native speakers of Chinese (NS-C). These speeches were then gone through the acoustic analysis. The acoustic data obtained from the native speakers of English were then compared to the native speakers of Chinese (the norm) to identify problems or difficulties in specific Chinese speech sound patterns used by native speakers of English. Major findings of this thesis are as follows. First, through the PVI (Pairwise Variability Index) measurement, the syllable duration and vowel duration produced by the NS-E display similar patterns compared to those by NS-C. Besides, undergoing the variability index (VI) measurement, the syllable and vowel duration of NS-E group are longer than NS-C group. Two findings both show the greater frequency of reduced syllables with a reduced vowel in English does not transfer to the Chinese material production by NS-E. Second, a significant disparity in the four tones production between NS-E and NS-C has been demonstrated. Through investigating the four tones production and downstep effects, some significant problems can be found. One is that these NS-E have more problems in rising tone (tone2) and falling tone (tone4). Another finding in downstep effects is that the NS-E can pronounce tones more correctly in some specific tone combinations (one tone followed by another tone). Third, in investigating stress production, one of the rhythmic properties, in two groups, the study employs the values of intensity/amplitude measurement. The intensity range and changing phenomenon in NS-E group is larger and acuter than NS-C group. The strong and weak intensity positions are not regular for eight native speakers of English. That means the NS-E tend to employ the different degrees of stress more in Chinese production. Besides, through the trochaic/iambic patterns investigation, it also shows NS-E would transfer their stress features to their Chinese production. These findings provide important information about what difficulties native speakers of English may encounter in speaking Chinese due to different rhythmic patterns and tone effects. The results can also help Chinese teachers develop appropriate and effective teaching approaches for Chinese learners. To sum up, the present thesis provide multiple perspectives in rhythmic patterns transference and the tone system influences on learning Chinese for native speakers of English.