The Perception And Production Of English Word Stress By Chinese Learners Of English

Lexical stress plays a vital role in native English speakers’ perception and processing of speech.In a large quantity of studies concerned English lexical stress,there have been a number of language learning models,among which Stress Typology Model（shortened to STM）is one of them and it is proposed in Vogel（2000）and is modified in Altman and Vogel（2002）and Altman（2006）.The STM predicts different degrees of difficulty regarding the perception and production of primary English stress by speakers of different first languages: speakers of non-stress language backgrounds have the best perception of English stress since there are no positive first language parameter settings for stress;speakers of stress language produce stress the best since they positively set the parameter “STRESS PARAMETERS”.Experimental methods were applied in this study on the perception and production of English word stress by Chinese English learners,and to investigate the factors affecting stress assignment and further to observe whether the results of this experiment were as the STM predicted,and to what extent that the STM can explain stress acquisition by second language learners.Meanwhile,this study was also to examine the acoustic characteristics of pitch,duration and intensity of Chinese English learners and English native speakers in the production of English disyllabic word stress,and further to observe the difference between these two groups in terms of their use of these features.To be more specific,this paper addressed the following research questions:1.What is the relationship between Chinese English learners’ perception and production of English word stress patterns?2.What are the factors affecting Chinese English learners’ stress assignment for English nonce words?3.To what degree Chinese English learners’ perception and production of English disyllabic nonce words can be explained by the STM.4.What are the acoustic correlates used by Chinese English learners and English native speakers to indicate lexical stress placement in English,including pitch,duration and intensity? What is the difference between these two groups in terms of their use of these features?In accordance with the research questions,two experiments were conducted in this study.Experiment 1 included twenty postgraduate students.The participants performed the production task first,followed by perception task.In the production task,participants were asked to make a single word out of the two isolated,stressed syllables,keep them in the same order,and say it in a carrier phrase.In the perception task,the participants were instructed to listen to taped utterances in pairs,each with the identical sentential phrase and nonce word but different stress locations.They were told to listen to both sentences and choose the one that sounded the most like a real English sentence.Experiment 2 included twelve post graduate students and six native English speakers.Participants were required to read 10 pairs of two-syllable words,each consisting of a noun and a verb,which has the same spelling but with different stress positions.Results indicated that 1)Chinese English learners were affected by lexical class in stress assignment.Nouns received more initial stress than verbs in both the production and perception task,regardless of the influence of syllable types.2)The influence of syllable structure in stress assignment were only observed in the production task.A syllable with a long vowel attracted stress more than those with short vowel or coda consonants.3)Chinese students in this study could more accurately produce word stress rather than perceive word stress,which was inconsistent with the prediction of the STM model.4)Chinese English learners produced significantly less native-like stress patterns,although they did use all three acoustic correlates to distinguish stressed from unstressed syllables.Chinese group produced stressed syllables with a higher pitch,shorter duration and higher intensity than English group,while they produced unstressed syllables with higher pitch and shorter duration than English group.