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ERIC Number: EJ1129706
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Jan
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2203-4714
EISSN: N/A
Prosodic Transfer: From Chinese Lexical Tone to English Pitch Accent
Ploquin, Marie
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, v4 n1 p68-77 Jan 2013
Chinese tones are associated with a syllable to convey meaning, English pitch accents are prominence markers associated with stressed syllables. As both are created by pitch modulation, their pitch contours can be quite similar. The experiment reported here examines whether native speakers of Chinese produce, when speaking English, the Chinese tone whose phonetic contour most closely matches the contour of the intended English pitch accent. Six native speakers of Chinese recorded English and Chinese sentences, all including the segment [fan]. Results show that the subjects produced a Chinese tone 2 where a rising pitch accents was required and thus that speakers of Chinese rely on their lexical tones inventory to produce English prosody. The results obtained with falling pitch accents are much less conclusive partly because of the difficulty in measuring tone 3 due to the high level of creak that accompanies it.
Australian International Academic Centre PTY, LTD. 11 Souter Crescent, Footscray VIC, Australia 3011. Tel: +61-3-9028-6880; e-mail: editor.alls@aiac.org.au; Web site: http://journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/index
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A