The Research On Russian Students Third Tone Tonal Modification Acquisition

Speech sound is an important part of the teaching Chinese as a second language; the tones are the most significant characteristics of the Chinese language. They are considered one of the key points in teaching foreign students. Most current phonetic researches are based on the method of auditory recognition, which researches perform during Chinese lessons, so the results of their studies are based on the experience. Meanwhile, experimental phonetics providing more scientific ways and more accurate data, opens new horizons for the phonetic researches. This thesis is dedicated to the study of elementary-intermediate level Russian students’Chinese third tone tonal modification acquisition errors. By using methods of error analysis and methods of experimental phonetics, this thesis introduces experimental survey on elementary and intermediate level Russian students’Chinese third tone tonal modification acquisition errors.The third tone is the hardest tone to learn for Russian students, tonal modifications of the third tone are also difficult to understand. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to reveal the problems in acquisition of these modifications among the Russian students, to analyze existed errors using methods of experimental phonetics, analyze errors’reasons and put forward some suggestions on possible teaching methods. This thesis has theoretical significance for the research of Russian students’ acquisition of Chinese as a second language. Moreover, it has a practical significance for Russian students’Chinese phonetics study, and for solving problems of teaching phonetics to Russian students.The questions which are discussed in this paper include the analyses of Russian students’acquisition of two syllables, three syllables and four syllables third tone tonal modification, reasons of existed errors and possible teaching solutions.This thesis came to the following conclusions:Russian students have less problems with acquisition of the third plus third tone tonal modification. As for the third tone plus other tones, as well as for three syllables, four syllables third tone tonal modification rules, Russian students don’t seem to acquire knowledge on these rules very well. Russian students don’t know well the rules of the third tone changing into half third, also they don’t seem to grasp the rules of pitch change in three and four syllables groups. We think that the reasons of these errors lie in L1effects. This question is discussed in detail in this thesis.We hope that this paper will be helpful for Russian students learning Chinese, and for those teaching Chinese as a second language.