Beijing Dialect Speakers' Production And Perception Of English Lexical Stress:An Acoustic Study

Lexical stress is a significant characteristic in English.Inappropriate production or perception of English lexical stress would greatly influence intelligibility and effective communication.Thus,the acquisition of stress is very important for L2 learners of English.However,few studies have investigated the acquisition of English stress by Chinese learners from a dialect back ground,further from the acoustic study perspective.The present study chooses Beijing dialect and conducts an acoustic study.Beijing dialect belongs to tone language,in which F0 is the dominant acoustic cue.Besides,in Beijing dialect,neutral tone is a common phenomenon,which instantiates word-level stress by duration.However,English belongs to stress language,in which F0,duration,intensity are the primary acoustic cues.It is interesting and meaningful to explore how the prosodic differences influence Beijing dialect speaker's acquisition of English stress.The present study aims to investigate the following research questions:1)Do Beijing dialect speakers and Native English speakers employ the three acoustic cues(F0,duration,intensity)in their production of English lexical stress? If they do,are there any differences in their employment?2)What is the relative importance of each of the three acoustic cues in the production of English stress for the two language groups?3)Do Beijing dialect speakers and Native English speakers utilize the three acoustic cues(F0,duration,intensity)in their perception of English lexical stress? If they do,are there any differences in their utilization?4)What is the relative weight of each of the three acoustic cues in the perception of English stress for the two language groups?In the present study,two experiments were conducted: production experiment and perception experiment.Two groups of participants(30 Beijing dialect speakers and 20 Native English speakers)participated in the experiments.In the production experiment,following the studies of Beckman(1986)and Fry(1955,1958),the stimuli were chosen.Participants produced the stimuli,and then the F0,duration and intensity values of each token were measured by Praat.In the perception experiment,following Wang Qian's research(2008),the stimuli were chosen.Participants listened to the stimuli,and then made responses to indicate initial stress or finalstress.Participants' responses were further processed with data analysis: mean ISP and reliance measure.Based on the analysis,the findings are obtained concerning English stress production and perception experiments:1)Both BJ and NE groups employ F0,duration and intensity in stress production.However,divergences still exist between both language groups in their exact employment of three cues.BJ group is not able to control these correlates in strictly native manner.BJ group depends on F0 to a larger extent than NE group,while BJ group rely on duration to a less extent than NE group.(F0: BJ>NE) (duration: BJ<NE)2)NE group and BJ group have different patterns of the relative weight of three cues.NE group: Duration>F0>Intensity;BJ group: F0> Duration> Intensity.3)Both BJ and NE groups utilize F0,duration and intensity in their perception of English lexical stress.However,there are significant differences in their exact utilization of each of the three cues.Their differences are embodied in the following two aspects.Firstly,NE group employs the complex combination of three acoustic cues,while BJ group relies very much on one dominant cue.Secondly,BJ group depends on F0 to a much higher extent than NE group,and they downplay the utilization of duration and intensity to some extent.4)In stress perception,NE group: F0> Duration> Intensity;BJ group: F0>Duration> Intensity.The research results indicate that L2 stress acquisition is influenced by learners' native dialect.L2 learners will greatly depend on the acoustic cues which are actively employed in their native dialect in stress production and perception.The present study supports and verifies the Native Language Magnet Model and Stress Typology Model.