Research On Single Vowel's Degree Of Labialization

Studies on the degree of labialization before were often starting from tongue position. Butlips which in the front of oral cavity, including upper lip and lower lip, are the onlyorgans could be observed from outside. The most directive way to study single vowel'slabialization degree is the observation on the changing of lips' shapes. This researchbroke though the old study ways and used the modern technique-digital camera to shotspeakers' front views and lateral views, then observed the changing of lips' shapesthrough these photos.The thesis is composed by 5 chapters. Among of which there are three main parts exceptthe preface and the summary.The first part in detail introduced the experiment of the parameters related to the singlevowel's labialization degree both in mandarin and Shanghai dialect. Including the designof the experiment, the technique problems we met and the solutions etc. At the last we got11 groups of parameters measured from the original data of the photos.In the second part we used the PRAAT software to calculate the second formant, thenanalyzed whether the 11 groups of parameters related to the single vowel's labializationdegree and how strong they are which further detailed explain the old conclusions.In the third part we discussed these parameters' phonology meaning. We broke throughtraditional classification of "spreading" and "rounding", further detailed the roundingtypes. We reveled the influence of the initials produced to the single vowel's labializationdegree. And we also compared the rounded monophthongs in mandarin and Shanghaidialect for discussing their differences of labialization degree and the reasons.