A Contrastive Analysis On Stress Between Chinese And English And Its Application

The paper studies the stress between Chinese and English, including the definitionof stress, the types of stress, the four distinctive features, the stress rules, the relationswith semantic, grammar and rhythm, and its application. Although previousresearchers make a lot of analysis and research on stress, and produce large numbersof achievements, generally speaking, many of them separately analyze the relationbetween stress and semantic, the stress and grammar, the stress and pragmatics, oronly study the Chinese stress or English stress.This paper bases on the summary and analysis on the previous studies done before,integrates all the dimensionalities of language together, infiltrates the study ofphonetic into the grammar, and brings the paper to a certain level. This paper startsfrom the contrastive analysis on stress between Chinese and English, aimed at thedifferences and similarities on the semantic, grammar and rhythm, and explores thefeatures of stress of Chinese and English and finds the significance and the value ofthe language study. This study is expected to be beneficial to language teaching. Italso helps language learners study the language well and have a better understandingof Chinese and English’s stress and rhythm. In the end we also hope they can play anactive role in the communication and overcome “Chinese Accent” when the Chinesestudy English and “Foreign Accent” when the foreigners study Chinese.The paper consists of six chapters:The first chapter describes the foreign and domestic studies of stress, andemphasizes on summing up the research situation of Chinese and English’s stress, andpoints out the existing problems and the significance of study.The second chapter introduces the definition of stress, the types of stress and thefour main acoustics parameters，which includes pitch, length, loudness and quality;then discusses the four parameters reflected in Chinese and English and the basic rulesof stress.The third chapter explains the relationship between stress and semantic. Based onthe second chapter, we do the contrastive research from two levels---the word level and the sentence level both in Chinese and English. And it pointes out that themeaning of the word and a part of speech will be affected when the position of thestress changed and presented in regularity.The fourth chapter dwells on the relationship between stress and grammar. Thispart also discusses the relationship in the word level and the sentence level; at thesame time we find that the position of the stress can distinguish between the wordsand phrases in Chinese and the phrases and the compound words in English, and havean influence on the syntax structure and the structure relationship.The fifth chapter demonstrates the relationship between stress and rhythm. Thischapter contrasts the types of rhythm of Chinese and English and how it shows in thetwo languages to demonstrate the relationship between stress and rhythm. In the end,the author analyzes and concludes the causes of different types of rhythm and“Chinese Accent” and “Foreign Accent”.The last chapter draws a conclusion based on the analyses made in the previouschapters. It concludes the differences and similarities in semantic, grammar andrhythm between Chinese stress and English stress, and points out the cause due to thetwo different phonology systems, characters and rhythms. At the same time, the stressplays a positive role in teaching. For example, the phonetic teaching, the word stressteaching, the sentence stress teaching, and the intonation teaching and so on. We canguide the practical teaching by the characters and rules of Chinese and English stressand the relationship of stress with semantic, grammar and rhythm. By this way, it notonly can help people overcome “Chinese Accent” when the Chinese study Englishand “Foreign Accent” when the foreigners study the Chinese, but also master the twolanguages well. At the end of the paper we also point out the deficiencies and thelimitations of the paper.