Identifying Differences In English Rhythm Between Chinese Learners Of English And English Native Speakers

From the perspective of traditional speech rhythm classification,Mandarin belongs to syllable-timed language while English is a typical example of stress-timed language.The great differences between these two languages in terms of speech rhythm present difficulties for learners of both English and Mandarin.Although there have been some studies on second language speech rhythm acquisition,they are not only limited in number,but also contradictory in research findings and problematic in research methods.For studies on Chinese learners of English rhythm.Meanwhile,many ELT teachers have difficulties in providing proper guidance for English speech rhythm acquisition and instruction.All these suggest that it is both necessary and important to conduct further research on English speech rhythm acquisition by Chinese learners of English.This study aims to identify differences in English rhythm between Chinese learners of English and English native speakers in English reading-aloud speech so as to improve the understandings of English speech rhythm acquisition and to provide some pedagogical suggestions.By defining speech rhythm in terms of the temporal duration and by taking the prosodic hierarchy into consideration,this study explores both the differences in surface temporal variations and the differences in accentual lengthening and final lengthening within intonational phrases.In this way,it is hoped to gain a more objective and more comprehensive picture of the differences between Chinese learners of English and English native speakers.Based on Li&Post(2014),Nazzi,Bertoncini&Mehler(1998),and Prieto et al.(2012)and by considering the syllable structures,the researcher compiled the reading aloud material by creating and adapting 20 sentences which were further grouped into four sets,each of which featuring one type of syllable structure delivered as fully as possible.53 Chinese learners of English and 12 native speakers were invited to participate in this study.All learners and 10 native speakers were asked to read aloud 20 sentences with their voice recorded.After the recording,two native speakers who had finished the recordings were invited to assess the learners’ recordings along with the researcher.According to the results of the rating,10 Chinese learners with the highest scores and 10 with the lowest scores were grouped separately,thus forming the high proficiency group(HPLs)and the low proficiency group(LPLs)respectively in this study.Then,via the use of acoustic analysis,the researcher conducted segmentation and worked with the two native speakers who did not provide recordings to do annotations.Results from the segmentation and annotation were further analyzed to find out the differences in surface temporal variations,accentual lengthening and final lengthening within intonational phrases among groups.Differences in surface temporal variations were examined by employing rhythmic metrics.Since the reading aloud materials could be divided into four sets of sentences according to the syllable structure,this study also investigated the differences in surface temporal variations of each set of sentences by employing rhythmic metrics.Accentual lengthening and final lengthening within intonational phrases were explored by adopting a prosodic hierarchical perspective.Overall,no significant difference was found between native speakers and high proficiency learners in any of the three areas,yet significant differences were found between native speakers and low proficiency learners and between high proficiency learners and low proficiency learners in the following three main areas:First,low proficiency learners produced a higher percentage of vocalic intervals,and presented smaller variations in the length of vocalic intervals and consonantal intervals.When syllable structures were controlled,the greatest difference was found in the complex syllable structure.Second,low proficiency learners were inclined to produce more pitch accents of intonational phrases and tended to place pitch accents of intonational phrases differently from both native speakers and high proficiency learners.In addition,they were not only unable to produce unstressed syllables and unaccented syllables short enough,but also failed to achieve sufficient accentual lengthening within intonational phrases as NSs and high proficiency learners did.Third,low proficiency learners produced more intonational phrases and were more likely to place intonational phrase boundaries differently from both native speakers and high proficiency learners.Compared with native speakers and high proficiency learners,they could neither produce sufficient lengthening effects for the final syllables of intonational phrases.Based on the research findings,some pedagogical implications were presented at the end of the thesis.Improvements should be made in both learners’ perception and production of English rhythm by providing proper examples and principles.In this way,students could rely on themselves for further improvements.To be more specific,first,teachers were advised to train both the perception ability and production ability of different aspects of pronunciation(temporal variations,pitch variations and amplitude variations)by using a combination of listening and imitation;second,teachers were suggested to pay more attention to the complex syllable structure;third,teachers were recommended to provide real time feedback and to direct the students’ attention to their real problems.