Cover not available
Article published In:
Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報)
Vol. 52:1 (2017) ► pp.28–54

The effect of pitch interplay on English-speaking learners of Mandarin

| University of Victoria

This study examines how native English speakers perceive and produce intonation and tone in Mandarin statements and unmarked questions. The results showed, as predicted, that English speakers had less difficulty perceiving intonation and sentence-final tone when the pitch movement of both was in the same direction than when it was not. On the production side, English speakers performed much better at producing tone than intonation. The intelligibility of their question intonation was especially compromised, likely due to their narrow pitch range. The English speakers also consistently produced more final rising pitch in Mandarin unmarked questions, suggesting phonological influence from their native language. Findings highlight the role of language experience in language learning, and the importance of pedagogical awareness.

Keywords: intonation, tone, unmarked questions, Mandarin, pitch interplay
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Background
    • 1.2Mandarin pitch interplay in L1 speech
    • 1.3Mandarin pitch interplay in L2 speech
    • 1.4Research questions and predictions
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Material
    • 2.2Participants
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Intonation perception
    • 3.2Tone perception
    • 3.3Intonation production
    • 3.4Tone production
  • 4.Summary and discussion
    • 4.1Perceptual findings
    • 4.2Production findings
      • 4.2.1Intonation production
      • 4.2.2Tone production
    • 4.3Pedagogical implication
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 4 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/csl.52.1.02luo
References
Backman, N.
(1979) Intonation errors in second language pronunciation of eight Spanish-speaking adults learning English. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin, 4(2), 239–266.Google Scholar
Barlow, J. S.
(1998) Intonation and second language acquisition: A study of the acquisition of English intonation by speakers of other languages (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Hull, Kingston.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D.
(2013) Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.3.56). Retrieved from [URL].
Bolinger, D.
(1989) Intonation and its uses. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Broselow, E., Hurtig, R. R., & Ringen, C.
(1987) The perception of second language prosody. In G. Ioup & S. Weinberger (Eds.), Interlanguage phonology: The acquisition of a second language sound system (pp. 350–361). Cambridge, MA: Newbury House Publishers.Google Scholar
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J. M.
(1996) Teaching pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chao, Y. R.
(1968) A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chen, G. T.
(1974) The pitch range of English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 21, 159–171.Google Scholar
Chun, D. M.
(2002) Discourse intonation in L2: From theory and research to practice (Vol. 11). John Benjamins Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Connell, B. A., Hogan, J. T., & Rozsypal, A. J.
(1983) Experimental evidence of interaction between tone and intonation in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Phonetics (11), 337–351. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cruz-Ferreira, M.
(1987) Non-native interpretive strategies for intonational meaning: An experimental study. Sound Patterns in Second language Acquisition, 103–120.Google Scholar
DeFrancis, J. F.
(1963) Beginning Chinese. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Derwing, T., & Munro, M.
(2005) Second language accent and pronunciation teaching: A research-based approach. TESOL Quarterly, 379–397. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, M., & Baumann, S.
(2007) An introduction to intonation – functions and models. In J. Trouvain & U. Gut (Eds.), Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice (pp. 25–51). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gussenhoven, C., & Chen, A. J.
(2000) Universal and language-specific effects in the perception of question intonation. In Y. Baozong, Taiyi Huang, & Xiaofang Tang (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th international conference on spoken language processing ICSLP (pp. 91–94). Beijing: China Military Friendship Publish.Google Scholar
Gut, U., Trouvain, J., & Barry, W. J.
(2007) Bridging research on phonetic descriptions with knowledge from teaching practice – the case of prosody in non-native speech. In J. Trouvain & U. Gut (Eds.), Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice (pp. 3–21). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hadding-Koch, K., & Studdert-Kennedy, M.
(1964) An experimental study of some intonation contours. Phonetica, 111, 175–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirschberg, J., & Ward, G.
(1995) The interpretation of the high-rise question contour in English. Journal of Pragmatics, 24(4), 407–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ho, A. T.
(1976) Mandarin tones in relation to sentence intonation and grammatical structure. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 1–13.Google Scholar
House, D.
(2003) Perceiving question intonation: The role of pre-focal pause and delayed focal peak. In M. Solé, D. Recasens, & J. Romero (Eds.), Proceedings of the international congress of phonetic sciences (pp. 755–758). Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Jilka, M.
(2007) Different manifestations and perceptions of foreign accent in intonation. In J. Trouvain & U. Gut (Eds.), Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice (pp. 77–96). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kratochvil, P.
(1998) Intonation in Mandarin Chinese. In D. Hirst & A. Di Cristo (Eds.), Intonation systems: A survey of twenty languages (pp. 417–431). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, O. J.
(2005) The prosody of questions in Beijing Mandarin (Unpublished doctoral Dissertation). Ohio State University, Ohio.Google Scholar
Lepetit, D.
(1989) Cross‐linguistic influence in intonation: French/Japanese and French/English. Language Learning, 39(3), 397–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liang, J., & van Heuven, V. J.
(2007) Chinese tone and intonation perceived by L1 and L2 listeners, In C. Gussenhoven & T. Riad (Eds.), Tones and tunes: Experimental studies in word and sentence prosody (pp. 27–61). Berlin / NewYork: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, P.
(1965) On the acoustic basis of the perception of intonation by linguists. Word-Journal of the International Linguistic Association, 21(1), 40–54.Google Scholar
Lin, M. C.
(2004) On production and perception of boundary tone in Chinese intonation. Paper presented at International symposium on tonal aspects of languages: With emphasis on tone languages, Beijing, China.
Liu, F., & Xu, Y.
(2005) Parallel encoding of focus and interrogative meaning in Mandarin intonation. Phonetica, 62(2–4), 70–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ma, J. K., Ciocca, V., & Whitehill, T. L.
(2006) Effect of intonation on Cantonese lexical tones. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 120(6), 3978–3987. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Major, R. C.
(2001) Foreign accent: The ontogeny and phylogeny of second language phonology. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGory, J. T.
(1997) Acquisition of intonational prominence in English by Seoul Korean and Mandarin Chinese speakers (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ohio State University, OhioGoogle Scholar
Mennen, I.
(2004) Bi-directional interference in the intonation of Dutch speakers of Greek. Journal of Phonetics, 32(4), 543–563. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007) Phonological and phonetic influences in non-native intonation. In J. Trouvain & U. Gut (Eds.), Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice (pp. 53–76). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. J.
(1984) An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica, 41(1), 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J., & Hirschberg, J.
(1990) The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse. In P. Cohen, J. Morgan, & M. Pollack (Eds.), Intentions in communication (pp. 271–311). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Rasier, L., & Hiligsmann, P.
(2007) Prosodic transfer from L1 to L2: Theoretical and methodological issues. Nouveaux cahiers de linguistique française, 281, 41–66.Google Scholar
Scherer, K. R., Ladd, D. R., & Silverman, K. E.
(1984) Vocal cues to speaker affect: Testing two models. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 76(5), 1346–1356. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schneider, W., Eschman, A., & Zuccolotto, A.
(2012) E-Prime user’s guide. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools, Inc.Google Scholar
Shen, N. S.
(1986) Tone, stress, and intonation in Mandarin Chinese (doctoral dissertation). University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
(1990) The prosody of Mandarin Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Shen, X. S.
(1989) Toward a register approach in teaching Mandarin tones. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 24(3), 27–47.Google Scholar
Tseng, C. Y.
(1981) An acoustic phonetic study on tones in Mandarin Chinese. Brown University.Google Scholar
(2003) On the role of intonation in the organization of Mandarin Chinese speech prosody. Paper presented at Eurospeech / INTERSPEECH, Geneva, Switzerland.
Ueyama, M.
(2000) Prosodic transfer: An acoustic study of L2 English vs. L2 Japanese. PhD dissertation, University of California Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Ueyama, M., & Jun, S. A.
(1996) Focus realization of Japanese English and Korean English intonation. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 110–125.Google Scholar
Ultan, R.
(1978) Some general characteristics of interrogative systems. Universals of Human Language, 41, 211–248.Google Scholar
Vaissière, J.
(2005) Perception of Intonation, In D. B. Pisoni & R. E. Remez (Eds.), The handbook of speech perception (pp. 236–263). MA: Blackwell, Malden. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vance, T. J.
(1976) An experimental investigation of tone and intonation in Cantonese. Phonetica, 33(5), 368–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Visceglia, T. & Fodor, J. D.
(2006) Fundamental frequency in Mandarin and English: Comparing first- and second-language speakers. In C. Lleoa (Ed.), Interfaces in multilingualism: Acquisition and representation (pp. 27–59). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, P., & Shi, F.
(2010) The undulating scale of interrogative sentence intonation of Beijing Mandarin. Nankai Linguistics, 21, 004.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C.
(2006) English intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Willems, N.
(1982) English intonation from a Dutch point of view. Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yang, C., & Chan, M. K.
(2010) The perception of Mandarin Chinese tones and intonation by American learners. Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association, 45(1), 7–36.Google Scholar
Yuan, J. H.
(2004) Intonation in Mandarin Chinese: Acoustics, perception, and computational modeling (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Cornell University, New York.Google Scholar
(2006) Mechanisms of question intonation in Mandarin. In Q. Huo, B. Ma, E -S. Chng, & H. Li (Eds), Chinese spoken language processing (pp. 19–30). Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Perception of intonation in Mandarin Chinese. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130 (6), 4063–4069. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeng, X. L., Martin, P., & Boulakia, G.
(2004) Tones and intonation in declarative and interrogative sentences in Mandarin. Paper presented at International symposium on tonal aspects of languages: With emphasis on tone languages, Beijing, China.Google Scholar
Zhang, Y. H., & Yuan, J. H.
(2011) A cross‐linguistic study of intonation: English learners’ production of Mandarin intonation. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 129 (4), 2681–2681. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Calhoun, Sasha, Paul Warren & Mengzhu Yan
2023. Chapter 3. Cross-language influences in the processing of L2 prosody. In Cross-language Influences in Bilingual Processing and Second Language Acquisition [Bilingual Processing and Acquisition, 16], ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Neal, Robert
2022. How do L1 Chinese raters process the L2 Chinese speech signal at the sentence level with respect to accentedness, comprehensibility and intelligibility?. Chinese as a Second Language Research 11:2 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Zhu, Junling
2023. Critical Literature Review on Teaching Chinese as a World Language in the Context of Globalization. Language and Sociocultural Theory 9:2 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.