An Experimental Study On The Acquisition Of Interrogative Meaning And Prosodic Focus In Mandarin Declarative Questions By Thai Learners

In verbal communication,intonation and prosodic focus are crucial to the transmission of information.However,the mastery of Chinese intonation and rhythm is the difficulty for foreign students to learn,and it is also the difficulty for Chinese teachers to teaching Chinese.In this study,through acoustic analysis of the output of interrogative intonation and prosodic focus of three groups of subjects,we explored: Can Thai students mark the focus of Chinese interrogative sentences;Can Thai students of different Chinese levels parallel encode interrogative intonation and prosodic focus;whether Chinese proficiency has an impact on Thai students’ marking focus,parallel coding interrogative intonation and prosodic focus.The results of the study found that:(1a)In Tone 1,2 and 4,intermediate and advanced Thai students distinguish the narrow focus on a sentence-medial constituent(NF-m)from the narrow focus on a sentence-initial constituent(NF-i)by extending the duration of the focus position.However,the duration will not be used to distinguish between NF-m and narrow focus on a sentence-final constituent(NF-f),NF-m and broad focus(BF);(1b)In Tone 1,2 and 4,intermediate and advanced Thai students do not use the pitch range 、the pitch maximum、the pitch minimum to distinguish different focus positions(focus at the beginning of the sentence,focus at the middle of the sentence,focus at the end of the sentence)and different focus ranges(narrow focus and broad focus).(2)In Tone 1,2 and 4,in all focus conditions,intermediate and advanced Thai students will use the duration to parallel encode the interrogative intonation and prosodic focus,without using the pitch range,the pitch maximum and the pitch minimum to parallel encode interrogative intonation and prosodic focus;(3)Chinese proficiency will not affect the Thai foreign students to mark focus of interrogative sentences,parallel encode interrogative intonation and prosodic focus.