On Prosodic Patterns Of Noun And Verb Phrases In English And Chinese

Prosody is one of the basic features of human language. Oral communication isimpossible without prosody, which conveys semantic and pragmatic meanings ofspeakers. Phrases, parts of speech, are frequently used in any language. Therefore, theirprosodic patterns are worth studying for teaching and learning.This thesis reports an experimental study of the prosodic patterns of noun phrases(NPs) and verb phrases (VPs) in English and Chinese as well as the acquisition of theprosodic patterns of NPs and VPs in English produced by Chinese learners of Englishas a foreign language (EFL). Based on the Three Ts Theory (tonality, tonicity and tone)(Halliday,1967; Wells,2006) and phonetic experiments, the present study attempts toaddress the following questions:1) What are the prosodic patterns of noun phrases and verb phrases in English?2) What are the prosodic patterns of noun phrases and verb phrases in Chinese?3) What are the similarities and differences in the prosodic patterns of nounphrases and verb phrases between English and Chinese?4) To what extent can Chinese EFL learners acquire the prosodic patterns of nounphrases and verb phrases in English?The materials of the phonetic experiments were seven noun phrases and seven verbphrases in English and Chinese respectively. They were both divided into five types:phrases with an article (PWA); phrases with a numeral (PWN); phrases with a nounmodifier (PWNM); phrases with a coordinative construction (PWCC); and phrases withan adverbial (PWAD).Of the subjects, the four RP speakers were English linguists from CambridgeUniversity; the four standard CM speakers were the state-level mandarin testers fromZhenjiang broadcasting station as news announcers and Jiangsu University asresearchers in Chinese linguistics; and the twenty Chinese EFL learners were juniorEnglish majors from Jiangsu University of Science and Technology. They were requiredto read the phrases in English or in Chinese. The data were recorded via Cool Edit Pro V2.1at the sound booth in Cambridge University and that in Jiangsu University ofScience and Technology respectively; then the software Praat5240-win32was used toannotate the recorded data by the researcher. Finally, the statistic data generated fromPraat scripts were analyzed in Excel.The results of data analysis reveal the following major findings.1. The prosodic patterns of noun phrases and verb phrases in English:(i) tonality:all RP speakers give each phrase only one IP;(ii) tonicity: RP speakers put the tonicityon the final content word;(iii) tone: all RP speakers adopt a level boundary tone (0%)and they adopt similar tones to utter pre-nuclear accents except modifiers and verbs;(iv)primary stress: all RP speakers fall the primary stress on the head noun or on theadverbial.2. The prosodic patterns of noun phrases and verb phrases in Chinese:(i) tonality:all CM speakers give each phrase only one IP;(ii) tonicity: CM speakers put thetonicity on the final content word;(iii) tone: CM speakers adopt a level boundary tone(0%) and they adopt similar tones to utter pre-nuclear accents except the Chinesecharacters with the first tone in Chinese intonation system;(iv) primary stress: all CMspeakers fall the primary stress on the quantifiers and modifiers.3. The similarities and differences between the prosodic patterns of noun phrasesand verb phrases in English and Chinese:(i) Similarities:(a) tonality: both RP speakers and CM speakers give each phraseonly one IP;(b) tonicity: both RP speakers and CM speakers put the nuclear accent onthe final content word;(c) tone: RP speakers and CM speakers both adopt a levelboundary tone (0%).(ii) Differences:(a) tone: the tone of each Chinese phrase is decided by the tone ofeach Chinese character while that of each English phrase is not;(b) primary stress: RPspeakers stress the head noun most while CM speakers stress the quantifier or themodifier most.4. The extent of Chinese EFL learners can acquire the prosodic patterns of nounphrases and verb phrases in English:(i) tonality: all Chinese EFL learners give eachphrase one IP as RP speakers do;(ii) tonicity: all Chinese EFL learners fall the tonicity on the final content word as RP speakers do;(iii) tone: Chinese EFL learners take alevel boundary tone (0%) as same as RP speakers do, but their overall structure of thetone pattern is quite different from that of RP speakers;(iv) primary stress: RP speakersfall the primary stress on the head noun while Chinese EFL learners choose the adjunctword to be the primary stress, which is transferred from Chinese mandarin negatively.These could be regarded as the distinctive prosodic features of noun phrases and verbphrases in English as an inter-language.The findings listed above provide insightful contributions and implications for theteaching and learning of English and Chinese as a second language.