| Intonation is the melody of speech. Ever since the policy of "Reform and Open-door" was carried out, the academic circles in China has been flourishing with many new field to be approached and new problems to be solved. In this thesis, a complete contrastive study of English and Chinese intonation will have to include an investigation of English intonation and an investigation of Chinese intonation at first. Different methods will be employed in the investigation of English and Chinese intonation in this thesis, with the former being more theoretical and the latter being more empirical. Theoretical analysis will be mainly in the literature review part, tracing the historical researches done by both domestic and international researches and providing the summaries and comments on them. Empirical analysis will include two steps: (1) collect news data from BBC, CNN and CCTV on the topic of natural disasters. (2) use the software Praat, the thesis is going to conduct a deep and clear investigation of the three intonation data. Summarize the features of them. Then, a contrastive study of the three intonation data will be conducted.The present study has also important practical implications. Pedagogically, the differences and similarities between English and Chinese intonation can help clarify some misunderstandings in both English and Chinese intonation teaching as serve as pronunciation guidance for both ESL Chinese students and CSL English students.
|
PDF Full Text Request