An Experimental Speech Analysis Of Disyllable Words With Neutral Tones In Mandarin For Laotians

Neutral tone,a phonetic change frequently occurring in Chinese phonetic system,plays a very important role in Chinese phonetic system.However,Lao students do not have a good understanding of “Neutral tone” while learning Chinese.As a consequence,they always make mistakes in the pronunciation of neutral disyllabic words while communicating with others or reading texts aloud.This paper,by employing the method of experimental phonetics,has recorded and sorted out the pronunciation of neutral disyllabic words by 12 Lao students from Yunnan University of Chinese Medicine for 3 months.Taking 2 announcers with mandarin grade 1 A and 4 Chinese students with Mandarin grade 2 A as reference,this paper has compared them with Lao students from pitch,duration ratio and volume ratio,finding out the differences and analyzing the pronunciation problems.Based on this,some suggestions on teaching and testing have been put forward.The article consists of five chapters.In the first chapter introduction,some reviews and classification of the previous studies have been done to show the significance of this topic.The second chapter is the introduction of the studying situation.In this part,following work has been done: analyzing the experimental objects,briefly explaining the research contents,research theories and related terms,as well as introducing the experimental steps in detail.In the third chapter,the pitch,duration ratio and volume ratio of 6 native speakers,including 2 announcers with mandarin grade 1 A and 4 Chinese students with mandarin grade 2 A have been analyzed,providing reference for the following research.In the fourth chapter,an analysis of 12 Lao students with correct pronunciation of neutral disyllabic words has been carried out.First,it tests the accuracy of the participants' listening to neutral tones.Then it makes a phonetic experiment to extract the pitch,duration ratio and volume ratio and compares them with the those of native speakers.In the fifth chapter,an analysis on the pronunciation of 12 Lao students' neutral disyllabic words has been conducted.Based on the studying results,some problem-based suggestions on the teaching and learning of neutral tone have been put forward.It's found that the participants have problems in pronouncing disyllabic words of four tones,among which the combination of “third tone followed by neutral tone” is the most challenging due to the superposition for the participants.In terms of pitch,some learners have problems with the tone pattern due to interference.At the same time,through the comparison of frequency difference,it is found that Laos' tone range is narrower than that of native speakers.In terms of duration and volume,the duration and volume of some Laos' neutral tone syllables have not been shortened or weakened,which fails to meet the requirements of neutral tone.Even for those shortening the duration and volume of neutral tone syllables,there is still a big gap compared with native speakers.Based on problems mentioned above,some suggestions for teaching and testing have been provided.