北京话和粤语背景学习者英语词重音产出研究

On production of English lexical stress by Beijing dialect speakers and Cantonese speakers

本文报告汉语方言韵律迁移对中国学习者英语词重音产出的影响。研究者考察了北京话和广州粤语背景学习者与英语本族语者产出英语双音节词重音时,音高、时长、音强及元音音质的声学特征。结果表明:1)与英语组相比,两个汉语方言组在产出英语词重音时音高更高、时长更短、音强更低、元音弱化更少,差异显著;2)北京话组和粤语组重读和非重读音节的音高、时长、音强及元音音质差异显著。北京话组音高较粤语组更高,但时长和音强更小,元音弱化更好。研究结果与实验假设相符,本文以重音类型模型和韵律迁移假设进行了解释。

This paper reports a study of prosodic transfer effects in the production of English lexical stress by Chinese learners. Specifically, the researchers examined the acoustic characteristics of pitch, duration, intensity and vowel quality in the bisyllabic words produced by native American English, Beijing Dialect and Cantonese speakers. The results showed that 1) the two dialect groups exhibited higher pitch, shorter duration, lower intensity, and less vowel reduction than the native English group in the production of English lexical stress. The difference in the acoustic parameters between native and non-native speakers is significant; 2) Beijing dialect group and Cantonese group differ significantly in pitch, duration, intensity, and vowel reduction. The former group manifested higher pitch, shorter duration, lower intensity and more vowel reduction than the latter group. These results conform to the experiment hypotheses and can be explained in terms of the Stress Typology Model and the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis.