The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody: From experimental studies to pedagogical practice

195 Pages·2016·3.91 MB·English

by  Chunsheng Yang

B The Acquisition
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1 Chunsheng Yang
John Benjamins Publishing Company
The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody
Bilingual Processing and Acquisition (BPA)
issn 2352-0531
Psycholinguistic and neurocognitive approaches to bilingualism/multilingualism and language
acquisition continue to gain momentum and uncover valuable findings explaining how mul-
tiple languages are represented in and processed by the human mind. With these intensified
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Editor
John W. Schwieter
Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Greenwich
Editorial Advisory Board
Jeanette Altarriba, University at Albany, State Ludmila Isurin, Ohio State University
University of New York Scott Jarvis, Ohio University
Panos Athanasopoulos, University of Reading Iring Koch, RWTH Aachen University
Laura Bosch, Universitat de Barcelona Judith F. Kroll, Pennsylvania State University
Kees de Bot, University of Groningen Ping Li, Pennsylvania State University
Yanping Dong, Guangdong University of Foreign Li Wei, UCL IOE
Studies Gary Libben, Brock University
Paola Dussias, Pennsylvania State University Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University
Mira Goral, Lehman College, The City University Jürgen M. Meisel, Universität Hamburg &
of New York University of Calgary
Jonathan Grainger, Aix-Marseille University Silvina A. Montrul, University of Illinois at Urbana-
Annette M.B. de Groot, University of Amsterdam Champaign
Marianne Gullberg, Lund University Loraine K. Obler, The City University of New York
Janet G. van Hell, Pennsylvania State University & Johanne Paradis, University of Alberta
Radboud University Nijmegen Jason Rothman, University of Reading
Roberto R. Heredia, Texas A&M International Norman Segalowitz, Concordia University
University Antonella Sorace, University of Edinburgh
Arturo E. Hernandez, University of Houston Bill VanPatten, Michigan State University
Walter J.B. van Heuven, University of Nottingham Virginia Yip, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Volume 1
The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody
From experimental studies to pedagogical practice
by Chunsheng Yang
The Acquisition
of L2 Mandarin Prosody
From experimental studies to pedagogical practice
Chunsheng Yang
University of Connecticut
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
doi 10.1075/bpa.1
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
lccn 2015040656
isbn 978 90 272 4371 3 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 6763 4 (e-book)
© 2016 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements xi
List of Figures xiii
List of Tables xvii
chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Mandarin Chinese 1
1.2 Models of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) 3
1.3 Motivations of the book 5
1.4 Organization of the book 7
chapter 2
Prosody of Mandarin Chinese and English 11
2.1 Defining prosody 11
2.2 Phonology of Mandarin Chinese 12
2.3 Prosody of Mandarin Chinese and English 12
2.3.1 Prosody of Mandarin Chinese 12
2.3.2 Prosody of English 14
2.4 Prosodic structure of English and Mandarin Chinese 15
2.4.1 The prosodic word 16
2.4.2 The prosodic phrase 17
2.4.3 The intonation phrase/breath group/prosodic group 18
2.5 Prosodic markings for prosodic phrases in English and Mandarin
Chinese 19
2.5.1 F0 patterns of prosodic phrases in English and Mandarin
Chinese 19
2.5.2 Duration patterns of prosodic phrases in English and Mandarin
Chinese 22
2.6 Summary 23
chapter 3
L2 acquisition of Mandarin tones 25
3.1 Introduction 25
3.2 Literature review of L1 and L2 acquisition of Mandarin lexical tones 26
vi The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody
3.3 Methodology 28
3.3.1 Recording stimuli 28
3.3.2 Participants 28
3.3.3 Procedure 29
3.3.4 Judgment of tone errors 30
3.4 Results 30
3.4.1 Tone errors in the reading passage 30
3.4.2 Tone errors in the spontaneous speech 33
3.5 Discussion 35
3.5.1 Summary of the findings 35
3.5.2 Why different tone errors in different tasks and data? 36
3.5.3 Why so many surface Tone 4 errors? 37
3.5.4 Contextuality and directionality 41
3.5.5 Research implications 41
3.5.6 Pedagogical implications 42
3.6 Chapter conclusion 42
Appendix: Reading passage 43
chapter 4
Acquisition of utterance-level prosody in L2 Mandarin Chinese 45
4.1 Introduction 45
4.2 Previous studies on L2 acquisition of utterance-level prosody in Mandarin
Chinese 45
4.3 Methodology 46
4.3.1 Stimuli 46
4.3.2 S ubjects 49
4.3.3 Recording procedure 49
4.3.4 Data transcription 50
4.3.5 Acoustic measurement 50
4.4 Data analysis of pitch patterns in L1 and L2 Mandarin Chinese 50
4.4.1 F0 patterns in the other tone sequence 51
4.4.2 F0 patterns in the compatible tone sequences 52
4.4.3 F0 patterns in the conflicting tone sequences 54
4.5 Summary and discussions 56
4.6 Chapter conclusion 59
chapter 5
Perception of Mandarin tones and intonation by American L2 learners 63
5.1 Introduction 63
5.2 Interaction of tones and intonation in Mandarin Chinese 63
v ii
5.3 Perception of Mandarin intonation and tones 64
5.3.1 Perception of Mandarin intonation 64
5.3.2 Tone perception 65
5.4 Research gaps 66
5.5 Methodology 67
5.6 Analysis of perception results 69
5.6.1 Results of the perception of intonation 69
5.6.1.1 Analysis of variance on the identification rates of
intonation 69
5.6.1.2 Within-group analysis of identification rates of
intonation 70
5.6.1.3 Discussion of perception results for intonation 73
5.6.1.4 Summary of perception of intonation 77
5.6.2 Results of tone identification 78
5.6.2.1 Analysis of variance on the correct identification rates
of tones 78
5.6.2.2 Within-group analysis of correct identification of
tones 79
5.6.2.3 Tone identification error patterns 81
5.6.2.4 Summary of tone identification 84
5.7 To separate tones from intonation or not? 85
5.8 The relationship between speech production and perception 86
5.9 Chapter summary and pedagogical implications 87
chapter 6
Acquisition of Mandarin Tone 3 sandhi: Interaction of phonology,
phonetics, and pedagogy 91
6.1 Phonetically motivated phonological processes 91
6.2 Tone 3 sandhi and its acquisition in Mandarin Chinese 92
6.3 Research questions and hypotheses 95
6.4 Methodology 95
6.4.1 S peech stimuli 95
6.4.2 Participants 97
6.4.3 Procedure 97
6.4.4 Data transcription 97
6.4.5 Data analysis 98
6.5 Results 98
6.5.1 Tone 3 before T1, T2, and T4 98
6.5.1.1 Tone 3 before T1, T2, and T4 in the familiar words 98
6.5.1.2 Tone 3 before T1, T2 and T4 in the unfamiliar
non-words 99
viii The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody
6.5.1.3 Summary of the surfaced productions of Tone 3 before
T1, T2, and T4 101
6.5.2 Tone 3 before another Tone 3 in the familiar words and unfamiliar
non-words 101
6.5.3 Third-Tone sandhi versus Half-Third sandhi 103
6.5.4 Tone 3 in a sequence 103
6.6 Summary and discussion 107
6.7 Interaction of phonetics, phonology, and L2 pedagogy 110
6.8 Theoretical and pedagogical implications 111
6.9 Chapter conclusion and directions for future studies 111
chapter 7
Temporal cues of discourse boundaries in L1/L2 Mandarin speech 113
7.1 Introduction 113
7.2 Literature review 113
7.2.1 Prosodic boundary cues for discourse structure in Mandarin
Chinese and English 113
7.2.2 Gaps in previous studies 115
7.3 Methodology 116
7.3.1 Participants 116
7.3.2 S peech materials 116
7.3.3 Procedure 116
7.3.4 Discourse labeling 116
7.3.5 Measurements 117
7.4 Data analysis and discussions 118
7.4.1 Syllable duration 118
7.4.1.1 Native Mandarin speakers 119
7.4.1.2 Advanced L2 learners 120
7.4.1.3 Discussion 120
7.4.2 Syllable Onset Interval (SOI) 121
7.4.3 Silent pause 122
7.4.4 Summary 123
7.5 Chapter conclusion and implications 124
chapter 8
Intelligibility, comprehensibility, and foreign accent in L2
Mandarin Chinese 127
8.1 Prosody in L2 intelligibility, comprehensibility, and foreign accent 127
8.2 Methodology 129
8.2.1 S ubjects 129
8.2.2 Materials 130
8.2.3 Procedure 130
ix
8.3 Results 131
8.3.1 Errors in the target sentences 131
8.3.2 Errors in the transcriptions by the native Chinese listeners 133
8.3.3 Factors affecting the ratings of foreign accent of the native
listeners 134
8.3.4 Intelligibility 135
8.3.5 Comprehensibility 135
8.3.6 Foreign accent rating 135
8.3.7 Correlation between comprehensibility and foreign accent
rating 136
8.4 Summary and discussions 136
8.5 Chapter conclusion 139
chapter 9
From research to practice: Training of L2 Mandarin prosody 141
9.1 Introduction 141
9.2 Audio-visual training on L2 prosody 142
9.3 Training on L2 Mandarin Chinese prosody 143
9.3.1 Training on L2 Mandarin tones 143
9.3.2 Training on L2 utterance-level prosody 147
9.3.2.1 Training on Mandarin stress 147
9.3.2.2 Training on tone co-articulation 148
9.3.2.3 Training on the quick changes of F0 direction and
tone targets 150
9.4 Chapter conclusion 150
chapter 10
Conclusion 153
10.1 Summary of the book 153
10.2 Theoretical implications 154
10.3 Directions for future studies 156
10.3.1 Perceptual and training studies on L2 prosodic acquisition 156
10.3.2 Longitudinal study of acquisition of tones and other prosodic
aspects 157
10.3.3 L2 spoken corpus 157
10.3.4 Cross-linguistic studies on L2 prosodic acquisition 158
10.4 Concluding remarks 158
References 159
Index 173