A Study on the Similarity between the Chinese Mandarin Tones and Sounds from the Environment--an Experiment on Mandarin Speakers, French Speakers and French Learners

• Main Authors: LARAIE ARNAUD, 雷驊諾
• Other Authors: WANG PEN-YING
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/53748813335010105245

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 華語文教學研究所 === 101 === Mandarin instruction is gaining popularity on every continent, and has become an increasingly popular subject of study in teaching Chinese as a foreign language in learning centers and universities. With Chinese characters, the tones remain the major obstacle for learners in their whole learning process, but also for teachers in their attempt to provide appropriate explanation and remedy. Based on foreign language teaching and learning experiences, and on the universal learning process that enables humans to get the unknown from the known, this study aims at researching acoustic phenomena in the learners daily environmental non-linguistic sounds to compare it with the similar physiological process in the enunciation of Mandarin Chinese tones. To do so, acoustic analysis and frequency pitch normalization are adopted to compare both Chinese tones and the fundamental frequencies of environmental sounds. Then, those frequencies were utilized as stimuli to conduct discrimination and categorization experiments on 20 native Mandarin speakers, 20 French speakers as well as 20 French learners of Chinese, to verify this acoustic analysis on the perceptual level. Finally, this study draws on Learning Transfer Theory to explain how the results of this study could eventually benefit teachers and learners of Chinese in second language acquisition. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) A similarity can be noted between the frequency pitch contour of Mandarin tones and the corresponding sounds we elicited on the basis of the same physiological mechanisms. (2) This acoustic similarity is particularly present for the subjects in their auditory perception during the categorization process, which tends to show the prevalence of Pitch contour versus tone height and length. (3) The half-third tone pitch contour and its corresponding environmental sound is accepted by most of the subjects as the Chinese third tone. (4) Daily mechanical maintained, accelerated, slowed, relaxed sounds and their common names tend to be a relevant way to help beginners and learners to distinguish, categorize and potentially memorize the 4 Chinese tones by a vulgarization of these complex frequency changing phenomena that are essential in the Mandarin Chinese phonology.