A Study Of The Chinese EFL Learners’ English Intonation Of General And Special Questions

Intonation is the spirit of the English languages, and it plays a decisive role inverbal communication. English is an intonational language, with its intonation realizedby the rising or falling of pitch; Chinese is a tone language and there is interactionalrelation between tone and intonation; its intonation is about pitch range andrepresented by raising or lowering the pitch range. Therefore, this study aims atinvestigating the Chinese EFL learners· intonation in general and special questionsfrom three layers: whole-sentenced-based, foot-based and word-based, under thetheoretical framework of Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and Prosodic TransferHypothesis, so as to generalize the English intonational features of the Chinese EFLlearners.Specifically, this thesis focuses on the following three questions:1) What are the differences in the pitch patterns of general questions betweenChinese EFL learners and native English speakers?2) What are the differences in the pitch patterns of special questions betweenthem?3) Based on the genders, how are the differences represented between them in thepitch patterns of general and special questions?In this study, the experimental materials were extracted from the question-answerpart of English900, and the questions were taken for investigation. The participantswere non-English-majored students in Hunan University and University of Oklahomain America, twelve for each group. The data were collected respectively by stereodigital recorder (Panasonic RR-XS700) and iPad. And Cool Edit Pro2.0was used toconvert the format of the sounds and segment sentences, and then Praat (version5.3.48)was used to extract the pitch values, and conduct the normalization of the data. Theresults show that:1) In terms of general questions (GQ), the overall pitch ranges of the Chinese EFLlearners (NNSs) are larger than those of the native English speakers (NSs), butIndependent Sample t-Test shows no significant difference between them. F0difference indicates that the NNSs and the male NSs employ a falling contour while thefemale NSs use the rising tone. In addition, the sentence-final foot ranges of the NNSsand NSs are larger than the within-sentence ones; and the sentence-final top line, midline and bottom line of the undulating scales for the NNSs and male NSs decline while those for the female NSs rise. And the pitch level of the NNSs is a litter lower than thatof the NSs. What·s more, the pitch peaks of the content and function words for theNNSs are higher than those of the NSs, however, the pitch ranges of the content wordsand function words (except adj. and pron.) of the NSs are larger than those for theNNSs.2) In special questions (SQ), the overall pitch ranges of the NNSs are larger thanthose of the NSs, with no significant difference by statistic analysis. F0differenceshows that both NNSs and NSs use a falling tone, with the NNSs· falling degree higherthan the NSs·. As for foot range, the largest one mostly occurs in the sentence-finalposition, and the top line, mid line and bottom line for NNSs and male NS aregenerally on the decline while the top line and mid line for the female NS rise. Also,the pitch level here of the Chinese EFL learners is a little lower than that of the nativespeakers. In addition, the pitch peaks of most content and function words for the NNSsare higher than those for the NSs. However, in pitch range, that of the most contentwords (except nouns) for the NNSs is equal to that for the NSs; yet, that of the functionwords (except aux.) for the NNSs is smaller than that for the NSs.3) For males, we can find that the male NNSs· overall pitch ranges in GQ and SQare larger than those of the male NSs, with no significant difference. The male NNSs·foot ranges in GQ (except foot2) and SQ are larger than the male NSs·. And the pitchpeaks of most content and function words in GQ and SQ for the NNSs are larger thanthose for the NSs, and pitch ranges of the words are under the opposite case. Forfemales, the female NNSs· overall pitch range in GQ is larger than that of the femaleNSs, with no significant difference. However, that for the female NNSs in SQ issmaller than that for the female NSs, with significant difference. And in GQ, footranges of foot1and foot3of the female NNSs are larger than those of the female NSswhile those of foot2and foot4are the opposite. And in SQ, the foot ranges of the NSsare larger than those of the NNSs. Besides, the pitch peaks of the words in GQ andpitch peak and range in SQ for the female NNSs are smaller than those for the femaleNSs, while pitch ranges of the words in GQ for the female NNSs is larger than thosefor the female NSs.