| English intonation plays an indispensable role in human communication.However,in most cases,the improper application of English intonation can lead to misunderstandings or confuse the native speaker.This thesis is an empirical survey of higher vocational college students’ acquisition of alternative questions’ intonation,through impressive and acoustic method,exploring the following problems: Can higher vocational college students distinguish English alternative questions and disjunctive yes-no questions in specific context? What are the characteristics of English alternative questions’ intonation produced by higher vocational college students? What are the similarities and differences of intonation patterns between native English speakers and higher vocational college students?The subjects of the present study include Chinese sophomores of non-English majors from Hunan International Business Vocational College and they are required to receive a matching test and a reading test.On the basis of Halliday’ 3T(Tonality,Tonicity and Tone)theory(1970),the researcher explored the tone choice,intonation phrase dividing and nucleus placement produced by native English speakers and by Chinese college students.The results of the study are as follows: 1)45.3% of higher vocational college students can choose appropriate sentence patterns and tone types according to specific contexts,meaning most of them cannot clearly distinguish between alternative questions and disjunctive yes-no questions;2)Characteristics of higher vocational college students’ English intonation are found: with respect to the tone choices,90%of vocational college students fall on the last alternative,and 24% of them fall on the non-final alternative,further,42% of them rise on the non-final alternative and 34%of them produce a level tone;So far as the tonality is involved,it is found that vocational college students divide the IP casually,sometimes change the original meaning;when it comes to the tonicity,vocational college students lack the awareness of nucleus,failing to produce the information focus in an IP;3)the similarities anddifferences between those two groups are found: in terms of tone choices,native speakers tend to apply a falling tone on the final alternative,and Chi-square tests show that there is no significant difference of the tone choices between higher vocational college students and native English speakers.In addition,native English speakers rise on the non-final alternatives,and Chi-square tests demonstrate that there is significant difference between the two groups;in terms of tonality,native speakers place the intonation breaks after each alternative,comparatively,higher vocational college students divide the intonation phrases randomly without regularity,meanwhile the pause duration which marks the intonation-phrase dividing produced by vocational college students is longer than native English speakers.And the speech rate of vocational college students is slower than that of native English speakers;in terms of tonicity,native English speakers are inclined to put nucleus on the alternatives,while vocational college students have a tendency to focus on function words besides of the alternatives. |
