Presentation: Sally
Summary: Sheng-Fu
Past studies on sentential
stress have found that Mandarin learners of English often either misplace
stress or produce stressed words with abnormally short duration. The goal of
the present study was to use acoustic measurements to further the understanding
of Mandarin speakers’ production of English sentential stress. The hypothesis was
that when the position of stress was specified and controlled, Mandarin
speakers of English would not significantly differ from American English
speakers in the use of F0, duration, and intensity in signaling
stress. Results showed that just like American English speakers, Mandarin
speakers were capable of signifying sentence stress with the aforementioned
acoustic cues, but the patterns of cues varied in certain ways: Mandarin
speakers produced stressed words with higher F0 and shorter vowel
duration than American English speakers did. The examination on unstressed
words showed further differences between Mandarin and American English
speakers: Mandarin speakers produced unstressed vowels with higher F0,
similar or longer duration, and higher intensity. Interference of L1 Mandarin
was mentioned as the most reasonable explanation to the acoustic differences. To
conclude, despite the acoustic differences, the results were argued as evidence
that Mandarin and American English speakers do not differ in apparent ways in
their implementation of English sentential stress.
