On The Prosodic Patterns Of Statements In English And Chinese

Prosody has been one of the most important features of language and has alwaysbeen pivotal in spoken language. The research of prosodic patterns of statements inEnglish and Chinese is worthwhile and it can serve better for teaching and learning.This thesis focuses on the comparison of prosodic patterns of statements betweenEnglish and Chinese and Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of the prosodic patterns ofEnglish statements. This study adopts the Three Ts theory (tonality, tonicity and tone)(Halliday,1967; Wells,2006) to analyze the prosodic patterns of statements producedby British Received Pronunciation (RP) speakers, Chinese mandarin (CM) speakers,and Chinese learners of English as a second language (EFL). Specifically, this studyintends to address the following research questions:(1) What are the prosodic patterns of statements in English?(2) What are the prosodic patterns of statements in Chinese?(3) What’re the similarities and differences in the prosodic patterns of statementsbetween English and Chinese?(4) To what extent can Chinese EFL learners acquire the prosodic patterns ofstatements in English?The materials of the phonetic experiments were sixteen English statementsand Chinese statements respectively. They were divided into five types: simplesentences, simple sentences with adverbials, compound sentences, enumeratingsentences and subordinate sentences.The subjects of the experiments were four RP speakers, who were Englishlinguists and phoneticians from Cambridge University; four standard CM speakers,who were the state-level mandarin testers from Zhenjiang broadcasting station asnews announcers and Jiangsu University as researchers in Chinese linguistics; twentyChinese EFL learners, who were junior English majors from Jiangsu University ofScience and Technology.The results of data analysis reveal the following major findings.1.(i) In English, in terms of tonality, all RP speakers chunk simple sentences into one IP and some of them also chunk enumerating sentences into one IP, and theydivide the sentence into two or more IPs when it has adverbial word, associate word,and subordinate clauses.(ii) For tonicity, except simple sentences with adverbials andenumerating sentences, RP speakers tend to place the tonicity on the final lexicalword as a nucleus.(iii) For tone, all RP speakers mostly tend to adopt a falling tone(H*+L) on the nuclear accents ending with a level boundary tone (0%).2. In Chinese,(i) for tonality, CM speakers don’t chunk all the simple Chinesestatements into one IP, and they all divide other types of sentences into two or moreIPs.(ii) For tonicity, except simple sentences with adverbials and enumeratingsentences, CM speakers tend to put the quantifier or the modifier most as a nucleus.(iii) For tone, all CM speakers tend to adopt a falling tone (H*+L) on the nucleusaccent ending with a level boundary tone (0%), except in enumerating sentences.3.(i) The similarities of the prosodic patterns of statements between English andChinese are:(a) For tonality, both RP speakers and CM speakers prefer to take simplesentences as one IP, and break other types of sentences into two or more IPs.(b) Fortonicity, both RP speakers and CM speakers put the tonicity on the adverbial wordsand enumerating words in simple sentences with adverbials and enumeratingsentences.(c) For tone, in simple sentences and simple sentences with adverbials withall of the contexts (sentence initial, middle and final), both RP speakers and CMspeakers prefer to adopt a falling tone (H*+L) on the nuclear accents, and they bothprefer to adopt a level boundary tone (0%) in simple sentences and sentences withadverbial words in the final part.(ii) The differences of the prosodic patterns are:(a)for tonality, in enumerating sentences, CM speakers tend to adopt a pause at the endof each enumerating word, while RP speakers don’t.(b) For tonicity, except simplesentences with adverbials and enumerating sentences, RP speakers tend to place thetonicity on the final lexical word as a nucleus, while CM speakers usually utter thequantifier or the modifier as a nucleus.(c) For tone, the differences lie in sentenceswith adverbial words and enumerating sentences, according to different places ofadverbial words and different numbers and places of enumerating words. Thedifferences of tone also lie in compound sentences, RP speakers may adopt a rising tone (L*+H) tone with a high boundary tone (H%) within one IP to indicate furtherinformation, while all CM speakers adopt a falling tone (H*+L) with a level boundarytone (0%).4.(i) For tonality,100%of Chinese EFL learners chunk all types of statementsinto the right IPs just as RP speakers do.(ii) For tonicity,100%Chinese EFL learnersplace the nucleus on the same word as RP speakers do.(iii) For tone,96%of ChineseEFL learners have mastered the general tone in English simple sentences,96.7%inEnglish simple sentences with adverbials,71.7%in English subordinate sentences,and only60%and43.3%of Chinese EFL learners in English compound sentencesand enumerating sentences.The above findings provide significant implications for the teaching and learningof English and Chinese as a second language.