Chinese Tone Research Articles

Could L1 intonation patterns be applied in teaching Mandarin tones to atonal learners of Chinese? – An acoustic phonetic study

Abstract This study focuses on the acoustic comparison of Mandarin Chinese lexical tones and Hungarian monosyllabic intonation patterns. The aim of this experiment was to explore whether atonal L1 intonation patterns are applicable in teaching tones in L2 Mandarin Chinese, and also to investigate to what extent atonal and tonal monosyllabic contours differ. Mandarin Chinese rising Tone 2 is compared to two corresponding Hungarian rising contours: i) monosyllabic interrogative contour and ii) the rising phase of the f 0 pattern in alternative questions. Mandarin Chinese falling Tone 4 is likewise compared to Hungarian i) declarative and ii) imperative f 0 curves. We compared Mandarin Chinese and Hungarian native speakers’ production regarding five acoustic features. Results show that Mandarin Chinese Tone 2 is articulated with longer duration, and a more concave f 0 curve compared to Hungarian rising intonation patterns. Mandarin Chinese Tone 4, on the other hand, was found to differ from the Hungarian imperative contour only in terms of the f 0 curve shape, since Tone 4 featured a more domed curve. Hungarian declaratives are characterized by a more concave f 0 pattern, realized in a lower f 0 range compared to Tone 4. The results of this study may contribute to the proper application of atonal intonation patterns in L2 teaching of Mandarin Chinese through the differences and similarities between atonal and tonal monosyllabic f 0 patterns.

A Review of Research on Mother Tongue Transfer During English as a Second Language Acquisition

In the process of second language acquisition, learners are often influenced by native language transfer. The effect can be both positive and negative. That is, the impact of positive and negative migrations. This paper is aimed at learners who speak English as a second language. This paper mainly summarizes the influence of mother tongue transfer on grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Mother tongue transfer may be challenging for English as a second language learners in terms of grammatical morphological changes, word order, virtual word functions, and syntactic component correspondence. The sentence structure in English is more complex than in Chinese. This makes it easy for learners to have difficulties in mastering English tenses, voice, singular and plural, etc. The second is the impact of native language transfer on English pronunciation. Native Chinese speakers are influenced by Chinese tones when learning English pronunciation. This results in a lack of fluency and accuracy in pronunciation. Finally, there is the impact of mother tongue transfer on English vocabulary. Since each language will have similarities, it indirectly enriches the vocabulary of the second language, and it is faster for us to learn and memorize. Learners should be aware to avoid the adverse effects of negative transfer of mother tongue.

Challenges and Strategies in Teaching Mandarin Chinese Tones

Tone instruction is an integral component of Chinese as an additional language (CAL) education. The present study aimed to explore the challenges and strategies of teaching of Mandarin Chinese tones in the multilingual and multicultural context of Macau SAR, China. Employing a qualitative methodology, this study drew on multiple data sources (e.g. classroom observations and interviews) of five participants. It revealed various challenges in teaching Mandarin Chinese tones, such as the backgrounds of CAL learners, the teaching context, and the sociocultural environment. At the same time, the teacher participants employed a range of strategies that included cognitive, emotional, and behavioural aspects to address these challenges. This study not only enriches our understanding of the complexities of Mandarin Chinese tones teaching but also provides practical implications for CAL teachers in teaching Mandarin Chinese tones within complex teaching contexts.

Shadowing textbook and authentic materials in beginning L2 learners’ acquisition of Mandarin Chinese tones in spontaneous speech

Abstract Addressing the lack of research examining the use of discourse-level speech input in beginning L2 learners’ Mandarin tone production in spontaneous speech, this study compares the effects of authentic videos and textbook audios as shadowing materials on beginners’ multisyllabic tone production in spontaneous speech and learner attitudes. Fourteen college students, randomly divided into the “authentic” and “textbook” groups, shadowed for four weeks. From the pretest to the posttest, both groups significantly improved tone accuracy in sentence-level spontaneous speech with no significant differences between groups. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of learners’ responses show that (1) both groups had positive attitudes toward the materials, (2) authentic materials generated greater interest, and learners appreciated shadowing authentic conversations or conversations that mimic natural discourse, and (3) the learners primarily cared about whether the materials were comprehensible, interesting, and accessible. The findings shed light on using authentic materials to teach L2 pronunciation.

Manager’s Perception, Accounting Training and Chinese Tone

The purpose of this paper is to measure if the undergraduates majored in accounting could more clear identification about management perception embedded in the Chinese financial reports. After comprehensive research designs and detailed questionnaires, this study finds that the more solid the accounting professional training, the more clearly the students interpret the financial statements, and the less likely they are to be disturbed by the language sentiment (tone) embedded in financial disclosures. Our findings contribute the importance of the socialized accounting education, which could minimize the level of misunderstanding by uninformed investors, and so do managers hold opportunism.

Comparative analysis of classical naming in Chinese and Russian

The subject of the study is the producing motivational bases of nominees in the Chinese and Russian languages. The object of the study is naming in two cultures. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the theory of nomination and its unique features in relation to Chinese and Russian linguistic cultures; the concept of naming and the process of creating onyms in two languages under the influence of historical background. Particular attention is paid to the Chinese tone, which influences the creation of ononyms, as well as a comparative study of onoms in the Chinese and Russian languages. The study was based on provisions formulated by linguists who study issues related to naming and nomination theory: Y.Y. Huang, A.K.K. Chan, V. Mathesius and others. Research methods: systematization and generalization, etymological analysis, conceptual analysis, linguocultural analysis. The main conclusions of the study are the provisions formulated based on the results of the comparative analysis: in Chinese culture, names are chosen to convey certain meanings and connotations. Chinese proper names often consist of two or three characters, with the surname coming first. Surnames are usually passed down through generations and carry with them a deep sense of tradition and origin. Names are often chosen to reflect virtues or values that parents hope to embody in their child. Names can also be chosen based on elements of Chinese astrology, such as the five elements and 12 animal signs. In Russian culture, names also have important meaning and are chosen based on many factors. They usually consist of a first name, a patronymic (derived from the father's name) and a last name. Surnames are usually inherited and reflect the ethnic or regional origin of the family. Names may be chosen based on religious significance, family traditions, or popular trends. The author’s special contribution to the study of the topic is that the article summarizes the main similarities and differences in Russian and Chinese naming. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time, based on etymological analysis, it established the relevant features of naming in the Chinese and Russian languages, which are also presented in a comparative aspect.

Exploring the impact of audio self‐modelling on Chinese as a foreign language students' tone pronunciation skill, self‐efficacy, and motivation

AbstractBackground studyChinese tone pronunciation instruction gains increasingly attention and various instructional strategies have been studied to develop effective tones in students. Students usually listen to successful pronunciation stimuli provided by the teacher or peers, to be copied by themselves. However, individuals seem more sensitive to learn from their own voice to develop adequate tone pronunciation. Self‐Modelling is an instructional strategy that builds on learning from ones' own behaviour to develop target behaviours. Most available research builds on visual cues; hence the label Visual Self Modelling (VSM) that presents learners with videoclips of their own behaviour. VSM had been found to be successful to develop a range of skills. However, when focusing on language pronunciation, audio cues are to be preferred to direct the modelling process. This inspired the authors to the design of audio self‐modelling (ASM) that starts from recordings of students' pronunciation. These auditory recordings are hypothesized to be more appropriate as a base for self‐modelling.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of ASM when training Chinese as a foreign language students' tone pronunciation (focus on contour, pitch, duration. Additionally, the study explores the impact of ASM on students' self‐efficacy and motivation and the relationship between students' tone pronunciation skill, self‐efficacy, and motivation.MethodA quasi‐experimental design was adopted, involving 26 students in a six‐week intervention to study the improvement of their pronunciation of Chinese tones at word level. Seventeen students in the experimental condition were trained via ASM; the other nine students studied pronunciation as usual on the base of teacher provided pronunciation stimuli and corrective feedback. Students in the ASM were also individually interviewed about their learning experience.ResultsAnalysis of the quantitative pre‐ and post‐tests scores show that ASM results in a significantly higher posttest score for in each of the tone criteria as compared to the control group (contour, pitch and duration). Also, students' self‐efficacy and motivation improved to a significantly higher extent in the ASM research condition. No significant correlations were found between CFL students' tone pronunciation performance and their self‐efficacy and motivation. Analysis of the interview data further indicated that CFL students put forward positive attitudes and perceptions about ASM, next to some concerns.ConclusionThe significant findings present empirical evidence as to the efficacy of ASM as an instructional strategy to develop L2 skills, and push the idea to adopt self‐modelling on the base of person auditory recordings to direct L2 pronunciation instruction.

Romanizing Chinese: word–tone relations in Athanasius Kircher’s China illustrata

Abstract When Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit missionaries landed in China in the late 16th century, they heard a language they could not readily reproduce in their own tongue. Unlike Latin and the Romance languages, Chinese is a tone language, in which the meaning of a word varies according to its relative pitch level. In order to Romanize Chinese, the Jesuits applied their knowledge of music theory and assigned solmization syllables to the Chinese tones. Although their manuscript musical dictionary remains lost, the essence of it is preserved in print in the most widely disseminated treatise on China of the time: China illustrata (1667), by the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher. To date, sinologists have generally dismissed Kircher’s musical Chinese as unintelligible. Musicologists, meanwhile, having long poured over Kircher’s Musurgia universalis (1650), have yet to offer a detailed critique of China illustrata. In reapproaching this singular source in Sino-Western history, this article argues that the Jesuits’ musical representation of the Chinese language should not be rejected a priori. Kircher’s cryptic description of Chinese can, in fact, be clarified by a letter from Beijing in which a Jesuit spelled out the Chinese tones in musical staff notation. A musical analysis of the lead illustration in China illustrata—the Nestorian Stele of Xi’an—indicates that the Jesuits’ solmizations were closer approximations of Chinese than one might assume. Off-tone though it might at first appear, China illustrata is a valuable record of how the Jesuits Romanized Chinese.

Timing specification of Chinese tones

Abstract Previous research has long been divided on the issues of Chinese tone bearing unit and lexical stress. To help address these issues, the present study proposes a tonal timing framework based on two types of timing units, specified μ and unspecified X. It uses Mandarin third tone sandhi and Shanghai Wu tone split and spread processes to illustrate that the proposed framework can provide a unified account of different tone sandhi processes from the temporal dimension. It also discusses the implications of the framework for the TBU size, default tone type, tonal prominence, tonal foot, word-level prominence, and tone-syllable association.

Successful lexical tone production of Mandarin Chinese autistic children with intellectual impairment.

Atypical speech prosody has been commonly found among autistic children. Yet it remains unknown whether prosody impairment originates from poor pitch ability in general or whether it is the result of the difficulty in understanding and using prosody for communicative purposes. To investigate whether native Mandarin Chinese-speaking autistic children with intellectual impairment were able to accurately produce native lexical tones, which are pitch patterns that distinguish word meaning lexically and serve little social purpose. Using a picture-naming task, thirteen 8-13-year-old Mandarin Chinese-speaking autistic children with intellectual impairment were tested on their production of Chinese lexical tones. Chronical age-matched typically developing (TD) children were included as the control group. Perceptual assessment and phonetic analyses were conducted with the produced lexical tones. The majority of the lexical tones produced by the autistic children were perceived as accurate by adult judges. Phonetic analysis of the pitch contours found no significant difference between the two groups, and the autistic children and TD children used the phonetic features in comparable ways when differentiating the lexical tones. However, the lexical tone accuracy rate was lower among the autistic children than among the TDs, and the larger individual difference was observed among the autistic children than the TD children. These results indicate that autistic children are able to produce the global contours of the lexical tones, and pitch deficits do not seem to qualify as a core feature of autism. What is already known on the subject Atypical prosody has been considered a maker of the speech of autistic children, and meta-analysis found a significant difference in mean pitch and pitch range between TD children and autistic children. Yet it remains unknown whether the pitch deficits are the result of impaired perceptual-motoric ability or if they reflect failure in learning sentential prosody, which requires an understanding of the interlocutors' mind. In addition, research on pitch ability of autistic children with intellectual disabilities has been scarce, and whether these children are able to produce pitch variation is largely unknown. What this paper adds to existing knowledge We tested native Mandarin Chinese autistic children with intellectual impairment on their production of native lexical tones. The lexical tones in Chinese are pitch variations realized on individual syllables that distinguish lexical meaning, but they do not serve social pragmatic purposes. We found that although these autistic children had only developed limited spoken language, the majority of their lexical tones were perceived as accurate. They were able to use the phonetic features in comparable ways with the TD children when distinguishing the lexical tones. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? It seems unlikely that pitch processing at the lexical level is fundamentally impaired in autistic children, and pitch deficits do not seem to qualify for a core feature of their speech. Practitioners should be cautious when using pitch production as a clinical marker for autistic children.

Production of Mandarin Chinese Tones by Sri Lankan CFL Learners: An Acoustic Analysis

Tonal variation in Mandarin forms a relationship with the meanings of words at a lexical level. Tones and tone sandhi are considered distinctive features of Mandarin Chinese phonetics; thus, acquiring accurate Mandarin pronunciation is challenging for speakers of other languages. The present study examined the production of Mandarin tones by Sri Lankan learners through acoustic analysis of f0 using Praat. The study participants were seven (n=7) undergraduate students at intermediate-level Chinese. Each participant recorded a sample of 20 elements, totaling 140 at three tiers: isolation, disyllabic form, and synthesis. The recorded acoustic data were analyzed using Praat 5.4.04 and SPSS Statistics 21. The results indicated that the mean f0 values of the realization of the four tones by the informants are heterogenous at all three tiers. The realization of T3 demonstrated a low accuracy, while T2 was realized with the highest accuracy at all three tiers. As revealed by the tone sandhi analysis, participants have resorted to the underlying representation of the tone sandhi than the surface realization.

Tone evaluation of Ling sound test in Mandarin tone version.

The Ling sound test cannot provide the test of Chinese tone for preschool children with hearing aid and cochlear implants. The paper tries to design a new tone test method composed of the Ling sound test and four Chinese tones to evaluate the hearing level of Chinese hearing-impaired children. The tone identification rates of 20 cochlear implant children were statistically analyzed to verify the validity of the Ling sound test in the Chinese tone version. In addition, this paper analyzed the pronunciation characteristics of the Ling sound test in the Chongqing-accented Mandarin version of 20 subjects. The identification rate of Ling six sounds was more than 97.0%, the identification rate of tone was more than 81.0%, and the identification rate of vowels was 83.1%, which was higher than that of consonants 79.0%. The Ling sound test n the Chongqing-accented Mandarin version has a narrower frequency range. The results verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the Ling sound test in the Chinese tone version in the assessment of frequency range and tone identification for cochlear implant users.

Effects of Synthesized Inflectional Tones on the Perception of Mandarin Third Tone by Native Chinese Speakers and Korean L2 Learners

This study investigated how Chinese Tone 3 (T3) was perceived by native speakers and L2 learners. In the current experiment, participants included 20 Chinese speakers and 20 advanced-level Korean L2 learners. The stimuli were 13 flectional tones with different ending pitch values (categorized as 211, 212, 213, 214, and 215), synthesized by Praat. Results indicated that the tone with a pitch value of 211 was most commonly perceived as T3, while other tones were mostly perceived as T2 (mid-rising tone). Both native Chinese speakers and the Korean L2 learners with over five years of Chinese learning tended to perceive 211 as T3, suggesting their sensitivity to pitch changes and contour cues. In addition, the Korean L2 learners relied more on the ending pitch value, with higher values leading to an increased perception of T2. The findings suggest the effects of perceptual mechanisms and instructional methods in L2 acquisition of Chinese tones.

Implicit Association Test (IAT) Studies Investigating Pitch-Shape Audiovisual Cross-modal Associations Across Language Groups.

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If automatic, does it also apply when the same pitch contours no longer sound like speech? Implicit Association Tests (IATs) provide an indirect measure of cross-modal association. In a series of IAT studies, conducted with participants with three kinds of language backgrounds (Chinese-dominant bilinguals, Chinese balanced bilinguals, and English speakers with no Chinese experience) we find language-specific congruence effects for Mandarin lexical tones but not for matched sine-wave stimuli. That is, for linguistic stimuli, non-Chinese speakers show advantages for pitch-height congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy); no congruence effects were found for Chinese speakers. For non-linguistic stimuli, all participant groups showed advantages for pitch-height congruence. The present findings suggest that non-lexical tone congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy) is a basic congruence pattern, and the acquisition of a language with lexical tone can alter this perception.

An Experimental Study of Chinese Disyllabic Tone Errors in Native French Speakers and an Investigation of Online Teaching Strategies

In the learning of Chinese as a second language, phonetic learning serves as the basis of the whole learning process, among which the learning of Chinese tones is of paramount importance. In this regard, this paper aims to explore the pronunciation of Chinese tones by native French speakers in the target language environment. First, through the experimental analysis as well as the recording of the tones of native French speakers, this paper selects a total of 237 disyllabic words, with a total of four combinations determined except for the combination of the same disyllabic neutral tone in the target language environment. Meanwhile, this paper utilizes PRAAT software to acquire the average frequency of tone sampling points, whereby the tone-pattern error of each tone combination can be clarified. Secondly, by comparing and analyzing the foregoing results with the tone patterns of Chinese students, this paper further finds out the tone-pattern errors of the same tone combination in disyllabic words, thus summarizing the corresponding error rules. Through the above experimental analysis, this paper concludes that the combination of Tone 3 and Tone 3 presents the highest pronunciation error rate, followed by the combination of Tone 2 and Tone 2. In addition, this paper reveals that the tone error is the main tone error and that there are also duration errors. Lastly, combined with the specific reasons for the errors, this paper proposes targeted online teaching strategies suitable for international Chinese education.

The Positive Transfer Effect of Chinese Tone on English Stress Learning

The Positive Transfer Effect of Chinese Tone on English Stress Learning

The functional load of Chinese tones and the tonal evolution

The functional load of Chinese tones and the tonal evolution

Prosodic Transfer in English Literacy Skills among Chinese Elementary-Age Students: Controlling for Non-Verbal Intelligence.

Building upon the prosodic transfer hypothesis, the current study aims to examine the intermediary effect of English stress on the relation between Chinese lexical tone awareness and English word-level literacy (reading and spelling) as well as the moderating effect of English oral vocabulary proficiency on the cross-linguistic association. Grade 4 Chinese learners of English (N = 224) participated in this study and were assessed for their tone and stress sensitivity, English oral vocabulary, English word reading, and English word spelling. Mediated multivariate analyses with moderation were used to explore: (1) whether the influence of lexical tone perception on L2 word reading and spelling was mediated by English stress as posited in the prosodic transfer hypothesis; (2) whether the effects of tone on English word reading and spelling performance varied as a function of oral vocabulary levels. The findings revealed a direct positive relationship between Chinese tone and English word reading and spelling, and the relationship was mediated by English stress awareness. Furthermore, the direct pathway from tone to English word-level literacy skills were moderated by oral vocabulary and the relationship between tone and English word-level skills became stronger as oral vocabulary levels increased; however, such strength reached a plateau among children without adequate oral vocabulary skills. These findings suggest the necessity to incorporate word spelling as an outcome in the cross-suprasegmental phonological transfer models of early literacy development. Additionally, the current study endorses the complexity of cross-language prosodic transfer. It points to a precise threshold for sufficient L2 oral vocabulary skills to enable tone transfer in English word-level literacy attainment.

Visual-Auditory Integration and High-Variability Speech Can Facilitate Mandarin Chinese Tone Identification.

Previous studies have demonstrated that tone identification can be facilitated when auditory tones are integrated with visual information that depicts the pitch contours of the auditory tones (hereafter, visual effect). This study investigates this visual effect in combined visual-auditory integration with high- and low-variability speech and examines whether one's prior tonal-language learning experience shapes the strength of this visual effect. Thirty Mandarin-naïve listeners, 25 Mandarin second language learners, and 30 native Mandarin listeners participated in a tone identification task in which participants judged whether an auditory tone was rising or falling in pitch. Moving arrows depicted the pitch contours of the auditory tones. A priming paradigm was used with the target auditory tones primed by four multimodal conditions: no stimuli (A-V-), visual-only stimuli (A-V+), auditory-only stimuli (A+V-), and both auditory and visual stimuli (A+V+). For Mandarin naïve listeners, the visual effect in accuracy produced under the cross-modal integration (A+V+ vs. A+V-) was superior to a unimodal approach (A-V+ vs. A-V-), as evidenced by a higher d prime of A+V+ as opposed to A+V-. However, this was not the case in response time. Additionally, the visual effect in accuracy and response time under the unimodal approach only occurred for high-variability speech, not for low-variability speech. Across the three groups of listeners, we found that the less tonal-language learning experience one had, the stronger the visual effect. Our study revealed the visual-auditory advantage and disadvantage of the visual effect and the joint contribution of visual-auditory integration and high-variability speech on facilitating tone perception via the process of speech symbolization and categorization. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21357729.

Varying Shades of Hearing

This paper provides an overview of 18 studies from over five decades that have investigated L2 Mandarin Chinese tone perception and the factors influencing it. We examine (1) varying patterns of difficulty of L2 Chinese tone perception and (2) the experiment designs that researchers have used to assess their reported patterns of difficulty. This review delineates the complexity of the current picture of difficulty in L2 Chinese tone perception. By analyzing a set of key issues that this investigation has unveiled, we propose new directions for future research that can enhance experiment designs and pedagogical approaches to tone teaching, while illuminating their intimate connections.