Add Students Between China And Japan, China And South Korea, The Joyful Acquisition Of Nasal Degree Study

More than99%of the world languages have nasal consonants and/or nasalized vowels. The diversity of nasals and the nasal features in world languages result in a complexity in acquisition of these nasals. While the majority of second language acquisition research has focused on acquisition of tone, vowels, consonants, using nasometer, this thesis investigate the degree of nasalization of sonorant sounds (i.e. sonorant consonants and vowels) through experimental method. The data obtained from laboratory setting were all statistically analyzed. This thesis examines degree of nasalization from the following five aspects:a.) production of Japanese sonorant by L1Chinese learners; b). production of Chinese sonorant by L1Japanese learners; c.) production of Korean sonorant by L1Chinese learners; d.) production of Chinese sonorant by L1Korean learners; e.) production of English sonorant by Chinese L1learners; f.) production of Chinese sonorant by L1English (Canadian) learners.The main findings of this study are as follow:1. In terms of vowel nasalization, a) L1Chinese learners of Japanese acquire/i、a/before/u、e、o/b.) L1Chinese learners of Korean, based on intrinsic nasality acquire/i、a/before/w、u、e、ε/a、o/are acquired last. Based on combined degree of nasalization,/i/is acquired before/e、ε、w/,/o、σ、a/is acquired last. c.) L1Chinese learners of English based on based on intrinsic degree of nasalization, acquire/k a/before/u、σ、ε/; based on combined nasality,/i/is acquired before/u、o、ε、 a/.Meanwhile, the order by nasalization of vowels is: a.) L1Japanese learners of Chinese:/i、a/before/y、γ/ι、ι、u/are last. b.) L1Korean learners of Chinese:/a、i、y、/before/ι、ι、μ、γ/. c.) L1(Canadian) English learners of Chinese:/a、i、y、ι/before/ι、γ、u/.2. As for nasal consonants, the Japanese, Korean and (Canadian) English nasals produced by L1Chinese learners of Japanese, Korean and English show higher nasality compared to the native speakers of all three language groups. What’s worth noticing is that Canadian English speakers, despites a slightly lower nasality compared to Chinese speakers, is in general on a par with Chinese speakers.3. The Chinese of Japanese, Korean and Canadian/i、a/is acquired before other vowels,the Japanese, Korean and Canadian of Chinese/i/is acquired before other vowels.4. Japanese nasal(s) produced by L1Chinese learners shows a rather complex picture. The plausible explanation is that L1Chinese learners of Japanese have difficulty in both producing and perceiving Japanese nasal (s).5. For both L1Chinese learners of English and L1Canadian English learners of Chinese, vowels positioned between two nasals (i.e. NVN) show higher degree of nasalization than cases in which nasals only appear on one syllable edge.6. Other than/u、i/, L1Korean learners of Chinese demonstrate significantly higher intrinsic nasalization and higher combined degree of nasalization in their production of Chinese sonorant. This is not found among other language groups (English and Japanese learners of Chinese.