| This dissertation investigates the relationship between the intonation system in English as a foreign language(L2)and the prosodic features of two Chinese languages as the mother tongues(L1).Specifically,the dissertation addresses the effects of Chinese tone and intonation systems on the acquisition of English intonation.The investigation focuses on Beijing and Guangzhou local college students.I compare four sentence types in English produced by Chinese(Beijing and Guangzhou)speakers and English native speakers for several aspects of English intonation including boundary tones.I compare the intonation of English produced by Beijing speakers(BJE)and English produced by Guangzhou speakers(GZE)in aspects such as pitch range,declination,inclination,pitch variation,boundary tone,final expansion,and final lengthening.The goal of my investigation is to add to the literature of acquisition of intonation in a foreign language,with the goal of improving English intonation teaching.The findings are as follows.Overall speaking,the pitch level of L2 English is significantly correlated with that of the speakers’ L1 s,and pitch span is significantly correlated with syllable excursion,pitch variation,and final expansion.BJE and GZE tend to converge in intonational parameters including pitch span,pitch variation,declination,inclination,final expansion,and final lengthening.Beijing and Guangzhou speakers tend to reduce declination in English compared to their L1 s,and show similar degrees of declination and inclination in English intonation.GZE shows a larger syllable excursion than BJE,but BJE and GZE show similar pitch span and pitch variation.Parts of the prosody of BJE and GZE can be argued to result from transfer from Mandarin and Cantonese.Different from native English intonation,in which holistic representations of rising and falling are essential and take place in a variety of ways,BJE and GZE have a monotonous intonation that highlights the IP-final syllables,as is the case in Mandarin and Cantonese,in which intonation does not play as much of a role as in stress languages such as English.BJE compresses the focus in echo questions that would otherwise have been accented in statements,whereas GZE echo questions overlap with statements until the final syllable.There are strong indications that the IP final LˉH% in GZE is borrowed from Cantonese.Different from native English,in which there is declination in all the four sentence types,yes-no questions in GZE and BJE tend to show no declination.Rather,inclination takes place across the sentence.The findings show that speakers whose first language has more tones don’t necessarily show a more flattish English intonation.On the contrary,BJE and GZE show comparable pitch span and pitch variation. |
