On the Importance of Bodily Gestures,Facial Expressions,and Intonations to Thinking Expression and Interpretation

Bodily gestures,facial expressions,and intonations are argued to be notably important features of spoken languagewhich are opposed to written language.Bodily gestures with or without spoken words can influence the clarity and density of expres-sion and involvement of listeners.Facial expressions whether or not correspond with exact thought could be"decoded"to influencethe extent of intelligibility of expression.Intonation can always reflect the mutual beliefs concerning the propositional content andstates of consciousness relating to the expression and interpretation.Therefore,these can considerably improve or abate the accura-cy of expression and interpretation of thought.

English Intonation Research and Teaching

Through the discussion and comparative research on theories, types and uses of English intonation, it is found that intonation is an indispensable part of oral communications. Proper use of intonation lies in knowing their functions and in the ability to correctly utter the patterns. Therefore, intonation theoretical knowledge is crucial and helpful to the English phonology teaching; and teachers need to properly incorporate intonation knowledge into teaching practice.

The Comparative Study on Chinese Tone and English Intonation

Aiming at difficulties for Chinese students to learn English,based on phonology theory,this article compares the Chinese tone with English intonation from various aspects,the finding is that the two language families have a great difference in intonation;intonation is put to use without high proficiency for students due to the influence of Chinese tone and its simplified pedagogy.

Learners' Difficulties in Phonology and Teaching Strategies

This piece of work analyses some learning difficulties in phonology and presents some teaching strategies on teaching phonology at supra-segmental level.

Discourse Analysis and the Teaching of Speaking

Speaking is a productive skill and it is acknowledged to be hard for learners to master.Certain elements related to phonetics in discourse analysis,which play a significant role in EFL teaching of speaking,seem to be neglected.This paper analyses three of these elements:pause,intonation and tonic syllable,and their application in the teaching of speaking.

A Prototypical Study of English Intonation

Starting from the traditional analysis of English intonation, the article discusses the Halliday＇s, Jackendoff＇s, and Brazil＇s views upon intonation. Then it explores the multiple meanings and its metonymic patterns of English high key in terms of the prototype theory.

Factors Affecting Students' Willingness to Correct Pronunciation Errors

This study is going to explore two questions: a) Do Chinese learners have awareness of what kind of pronunciation errors they make; b) What factors will affect Chinese learners' willingness to correct the pronunciation errors they make. The instrument will consist of 4 questionnaires or 4 parts developed by four researchers(Luk and Sardegna, Lee, Kusey). The whole study will include 6 parts: background information about pronunciation; two research questions; the methodology; the results;the discussion and a conclusion.

Contrastive Analysis of Intonation and Tone in Chinese and English

In English,intonation is the main research object of supra-segmental phonology,it refers to the changes of tone and pitch.English intonation is non-tone language which means the word meaning will not changed with the changing of the independent word's tone,while Chinese is Tone language,in which tone often determinates the meaning of word,different tones are representative of different meanings.Chinese language function exerts differently in tone and intonation,and it is a bit complicated compared with English.

Achieving Self-Imitation for English Intonation Learning:The Role of Corrective Feedback

Corrective feedback is crucial for pronunciation teaching.However,in current pronunciation teaching practice,the corrective feedback provided usually fails to locate pronunciation problems and inform learners of the differences between their mispronunciations and the correct form.Based on the motor theory,this study attempted to explore a new way of corrective feedback for pronunciation teaching.Specifically,the learners’ speech output was modified and then was played back to them as an input model for learning.In this way,the learners can imitate the pronunciation model of their own voices,achieving self-imitation.This study included two experiments.The first explored the viability of obtaining one’s self-perceived voice through delayed feedback paradigm.The second experiment examined the effectiveness of self-imitation for English intonation learning.Results showed that imitating the pronunciation model of one’s own voice can reduce the learners’ phonological memory load,assist critical listening and facilitate accurate phonetic realizations of the target intonation.

Listening Problems ChineseE Students Face and SuffestionsS for Solving ThemM

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Music as Mathematics of Senses

It is often said that music has reached its supreme and highest level in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the main reasons for this achievement seems to be the robust structure of compositions of music, somewhat remindful of robust structure of mathematics. One is reminded of the words of Goethe: Geometry is frozen music. Here, we may extend geometry to mathematics. For the Middle Age in Europe, there were seven main subjects in the universities or in higher education. They were grammar, logic and rhetoric—these three (tri) were regarded as more standard and called trivia (trivium), the origin of the word trivial. And the remaining four were arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music—these four (quadrus) were regarded as more advanced subjects and were called quadrivia (quadrivium). Thus for Goethe, geometry and mathematics seem to be equivocal. G. Leibniz expresses more in detail in his letter to C. Goldbach in 1712 (April 17): Musica est exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis se numerari animi (Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which doesn’t know that it is counting). Or in other respects, J. Sylvester expresses more in detail: Music is mathematics of senses. Mathematics is music of reasons. Thus, the title arises. This paper is a sequel to [1] and examines mathematical structure of musical scales entailing their harmony on expanding and elaborating material in [2] [3] [4] [5], etc. In statistics, the strong law of large numbers is well-known which claims that This means that the relative frequency of occurrences of an event A tends to the true probability p of the occurrences of A with probability 1. In music, harmony is achieved according to Pythagoras’ law of small numbers, which claims that only the small integer multiples of the fundamental notes can create harmony and consonance. We shall also mention the law of cyclotomic numbers according to Coxeter, which elaborates Pythagoras’ law and suggests a connection with construction of n-gons by ruler and compass. In the case of natural scales (just intonation), musical notes appear in the form 2p3q5r (multiples of the basic note), where p∈Z,?q=-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 and r=-1, 0, 1. We shall give mathematical details of the structure of various scales.

An Experimental Phonetic Study of Dialectal Impact on English Learners'Prosody--A Case Study of Shandong Dialect

It has been commonly recognized by the academic community that Chinese English learners can be regarded as the trilingual learners in dialects,Mandarin,and then English.Thus the first two acquired languages seem to be unavoidable to result in some effects on the study of English,especially the prosody of English.At the same time,the fact that the English prosodic research has been a significant project in the linguistic study with the globalization and localization of English,draws the public’s attention to the further study of the prosody of English for which is of vital importance in English learning.Focusing on the intonation,stress,tone,pause,and so on,prosody is the fundamental element of speech and the core of English phonetics.Taking Shandong dialect as an example,the study investigates the influence of the dialects on the learning of English prosody from two aspects—intonation and stress,by the acoustic analysis and comparison of the English prosody of linguistic data from Shandong EFL learners and English native speakers based on IViE(Intonational Variation in English)and ToBI(Tone and Breaks Indices)systems using Praat software.In addition,the reasons why these effects and problems take place are discussed profoundly.Therefore the corresponding measures should be taken in order to help students eliminate the negative impacts of their dialects and deliver standard English.The study may have great references on the improvement and elevation of teaching methods on the dialectal regions and some implications on second language acquisition.

Simulating a Guitar with a Conventional Sonometer

In this paper we present a simple way to convert a conventional sonometer into a simulated fretted instrument, such as a guitar or similar, by adding a fingerboard to the sonometer. In particular, we use this modified apparatus in relation to the problem of the instrument intonation, i.e., how to obtain correctly tuned notes on these string instruments. The experimental procedures presented in this study can become a more structured laboratory activity to be used in general physics courses or acoustics classes.

The Matrix and Parameters of the “Jiugong-Modes” of the Chinese Basic Intonation

The author outlines the matrix and parameters of the forms of basic intonation of Chinese texts, and, based on the traditional Chinese graphic expression Jiugong(nine squares), systematically describes the tonal ranges and various forms of basic intonation. She concludes that if we express the pitch and length of the texts by means of two coordinate axes, and each coordinate axis is divided into three levels, a Jiugong matrix of intonation will be established, and different two-dimensional acoustic features can be found at various points on the Jiugong diagram. The Jiugong matrix of intonation as expoundedin this paper serves as the rules for the combination of intonations and covers all the basic tones of Chinese texts.

重视语调在交际英语中的作用

我们在学习和使用英语的过程中,多把重点放在语法结构和对词义的理解上,而忽视对语调的研究。即使是在语音教学中,为了便于学生掌握,也是将某种语调和句子的语法结构联系起来。例如:一般疑问句用升调,特殊疑问句用降调等等。这些一般规律在学生的头脑中留下了深刻的印象,对某些学生而言已经是天经地义,不可逆转。似乎语调的使用是由句子的语法结构决定的。实际上一句话除了它表面的词汇意义(lexical meaning)以外,还有语调意义(intonation meaning)。

Discourse Intonation and Teacher Cognition

This study examines the relationship between discourse intonation （henceforth DI） and teacher cognition. Drawing on the rich literature on the teacher cognition in grammar, this study borrows some relevant insights for a better understanding of the relationship between teacher cognition and DI. Following a qualitative treatment, the study concludes that instruction on D1 is a dynamic debate fed by both teacher training and teachers＇ experience of teaching and learning in general, which leads into suggesting the need for any teacher training on DI to take into account both DI knowledge as well as teacher core and peripheral belief. The contribution of the study lies in its tapping of a relatively poorly investigated area and offering advances on the many negative or simplistic teacher attitudes regarding intonation instruction as expressed in the literature, as well as in bringing to the surfaces something which teachers sometimes are not explicitly aware of.

Contour Patterns of Chinese Intonational Phrases

Due to the interaction between lexical tones and intonation in Chinese speech melody, the contour patterns of Chinese IPs （intonational phrases） have long been an intriguing yet complicated subject. Within the AM （Autosegmental-Metrical） framework, this paper makes an empirical study on the subject based on a small-scale database of 22 standard Chinese news stories. A five-degree D value system is proposed for data normalization so that various contour patterns of IPs can be identified and compared despite complications in pitch register and pitch range. The major findings are： Chinese IPs mainly comprise 2, 3, or 4 ips （intermediate phrases）. And the contour patterns of Chinese IPs suggest that the statement intonation in Chinese is primarily indicated by the near-bottom Dmin value of the last ip. Meanwhile, when the primary indicator is not typical, the falling trend of the last part of the top-line can serve as a compensatory perceptual clue.

再谈形容词的比较级

看了贵刊《没有比较级和最高级的形容词》(1996年第1期)一文后,觉得作者确实指出了一个容易被忽略的问题。但同时感觉到,该文未把有些问题说透彻。在英语中有些形容词是没有比较级,但这要看在什么语言环境中。在某个特定的语言环境中,有些形容词的比较级是可以接受的。如:

An Intonation Speech Synthesis Model for Indonesian Using Pitch Pattern and Phrase Identification

Prosody in speech synthesis systems (text-to-speech) is a determinant of tone, duration, and loudness of speech sound. Intonation is a part of prosody which determines the speech tone. In Indonesian, intonation is determined by the structure of sentences, types of sentences, and also the position of the word in a sentence. In this study, a model of speech synthesis that focuses on its intonation is proposed. The speech intonation is determined by sentence structure, intonation patterns of the example sentences, and general rules of Indonesian pronunciation. The model receives texts and intonation patterns as inputs. Based on the general principle of Indonesian pronunciation, a prosody file was made. Based on input text, sentence structure is determined and then interval among parts of a sentence (phrase) can be determined. These intervals are used to correct the duration of the initial prosody file. Furthermore, the frequencies in prosody file were corrected using intonation patterns. The final result is prosody file that can be pronounced by speech engine application. Experiment results of studies using the original voice of radio news announcer and the speech synthesis show that the peaks of?F0?are determined by general rules or intonation patterns which are dominant. Similarity test with the PESQ method shows that the result of the synthesis is 1.18 at MOS-LQO scale.

教师的课堂英语

当前,中国学生听英语的机会一般还不算很多。在他们所能听到的有限的英语中,教师的课堂英语必定占很大的一部分。教师在课堂上讲英语时所用的词汇和句型是有限制的。因为教师基本上要用学生听得懂的英语说话,偶尔加几个生词或用了学生不熟悉的句型固然也无妨,但总不宜过多。也就是说,教师的课堂英语受学生的词汇和语法知识的限制。再者,教师在课堂上说话,是为了进行课堂教学,例如讲解文章的内容。