An Experimental Study Of Prosodic Features Of Old And New Information In English And Chinese: An Acoustic Perspective

Language is the most important communicative tool of human beings. Whether in oral communication or written communication, the ultimate goal is to convey information successfully and express emotions properly. Pronunciation and intonation have been regarded as physical clothes of language, which play an utmost important role in communication and are closely related to listening and speaking. In linguistics,prosody refers to the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. It is an indispensable element in speech perception and language acquisition. The negative transfer from L1 Chinese in prosody is usually used to account for Chinese EFL learners’ foreign talks.This thesis tries to make a parallel comparison between British English and Chinese Mandarin and between British English and L2 English from the perspective of prosodic features so as to explore the inherent prosodic differences and similarities of in the delivering of old and new information in connected speech.This thesis reports an experimental acoustic study of prosodic features of old and new information in British English and Chinese Mandarin based on functional phonological theory---Three Ts Theory,(Halliday, 1967; Wells, 2006) in terms of prosodic acoustic parameters as duration, intensity and fundamental frequency.Specifically, this study intends to answer the following research questions:1) What are the prosodic features of old and new information in English?2) What are the prosodic features of old and new information in Chinese?3) What are the similarities and differences in the prosodic features of old and new information between English and Chinese?4) What are the similarities and differences in the prosodic features of old and new information produced by Chinese EFL learners and British RP speakers?The experimental materials for the phonetic experiments consist of four groups of English sentences and an English dialogue, which were translated into Chinese, with similar syntactic structure and same semantic meanings. They differ in sentence types and forms of information status. The experimental materials were read by four British RP speakers, four Standard Mandarin Chinese speakers, and twenty Chinese English major junior students as a sample of L2 English learners in China.The stimuli recordings were conducted via professional recording software Cool Edit Pro V2.1 at the sound-proof booths in the phonetic labs in, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology(JUST) and in the phonetics lab in the University of Cambridge respectively. Then the recorded data were annotated and analyzed by Praat5130-win32. And finally the acoustic parameters were analyzed in Microsoft Excel2013 and statistic tool SPSS verison18.0.The results of data analysis reveal the findings as follows.1. In English, increasing durational values and enlarging pitch range have a significant effect on the prominence of new information in the utterances. But Intensity doesn’t show significant effect on highlighting the new information. Specifically,(1) As long as a word is new in the stimuli sentences, its durational values increase obviously than other syllables.(2) Intensity doesn’t have a strong correlation in the prominence of new information.(3) The last content word in an intonation phrase usually bears the tonicity and carries new information in the one-information focus sentence.2. In Chinese, the prominence of new information usually increases intensity values and enlarge its pitch range. Of the three acoustic parameters, duration and intensity are two more important acoustic approaches than pitch range.(1) In terms of duration, the location of emphatic stress makes an obvious durational increase on the new information bearing words.(2) If a word in its intonation phrase acts as nuclear accent,its intensity values increase significantly(3) Duo to tonal factors, new information carrying words present curves of F0 contours in statements and questioning sentences.(4) Tonicity of the one information focus sentences isusually locates at the IP final word, and the final word of an IP bears the nuclear accents of the utterances.3. The prosodic similarities of old and new information were found between English and Chinese presented as follows:(1) Durational values have a significant effect on the prominence of new information in both Chinese and English statements, questioning sentences and dialogue.(2) In one information focus statements sentences, all the words carrying new information increase its intensity values both in Chinese and English experimental materials.(3) Tonicity of the one information focus statement sentences are usually locates on the sentence-final word both in English and Chinese.The prosodic differences of old and new information were found between English and Chinese presented as follows:(1) Intensity values have more effect on the prominence of new information in Mandarin Chinese.(2) Pitch range of new information carrying words in English is larger than that in Chinese.4. The similarities in the prominence of old and new between Chinese EFL learners and British RP speakers were found as follows:(1) The two groups of subjects increased the durational values of new information carrying words to make the new information prominent in the intonation phrase.(2) Both Chinese EFL learners and British RP speakers tend to accent the new information and deaccent old information.The differences between Chinese EFL learners and English RP speakers are:(1) Most new information carrying words produced by Chinese EFL learners are obviously longer than those produced by British RP speakers.(2) For Chinese English L2 learners, every new information carrying words produced in a higher volume than old information carrying words. But it is not in the same way as British RP speakers do.(3) For pitch range, British RP speakers have a larger pitch expansion than Chinese EFL learners do in prominence of new information.These findings not only provide a better understanding of the prosody of English and Chinese as well as that of L2 English produced by Chinese EFL learners but also shed light onto the teaching and learning of English and Chinese intonation as a second language in and outside China.