The Study of Focus Words in English Sentences: Taiwanese Learning English as a Foreign Language
Date Issued
2005
Date
2005
Author(s)
Chen, Pao-Yu
DOI
en-US
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to compare the intonation of English focus words acoustically in three positions and in two sentence structures between American native speakers and Taiwanese advanced English learners. The first language of Taiwanese English learners is Mandarin Chinese, known as a tonal language, and the target language they are learning is English, an intonational language. The issues of the acoustical expression of focus words in the two language groups are discussed.
A total of 14 speakers participated in the acoustical experiment with 7 being Taiwanese advanced English learners and the other 7 being American native speakers. The Taiwanese advanced English learners are now studying in graduate institutes in National Taiwan University and majored in English as they studied in universities. They had never learned English from native speakers for more than two months before they attended university. The experiment design involved four parameters: positions, sentence structures, different language groups, focus and neutral focus words. The positions of focus words referred to were sentence-initial, -medial, and –final. The sentence structures were statements and questions.
Computer-aided acoustical analysis of the pitch of the focused word showed that native speakers tend to vary their pitch patterns with positions the focus words occupy. As focus words in sentence-initial, American native speakers are inclined to have post-focus drop to express focus whereas Taiwanese English learners raise the pitch value of the focus words. In sentence-medial focus words, Americans show no pitch differences from the neutral focus sentences while Taiwanese English learners locally raise the pitch value of the focus words. In the sentence-final focus words, both Americans and Taiwanese English learners show no obvious pitch differences from neutral focus words. Regarding the durational analysis of focus words and stressed syllables in focus words, native speakers elongate the duration of focus words in both statements and questions in any position. However, Taiwanese English learners show no consistent patterns in their durational lengthening in the three positions. Taiwanese English learners tend to lengthen the syllables in the focus words to achieve the task of elongating the focus words. The results show that Taiwanese second language learners do not show a similar tendency in the acoustic expression of focus words with American native speakers.
The finding in this thesis indicates that, even being an advanced language learners, Taiwanese advanced English learners cannot acquire the English intonation, which may result from a negative transfer from their native language. This result contributes to the second language learning and further research.
Subjects
焦點字
位置
句型
不同的語言群組
全面性及區域性上升
頂線
focus word
position
sentence structure
different language groups
global and local rising
topline
Type
other
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-94-R90142012-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):3a1743fb81078bdf5c39a6de22152ca5