英語高低重音之語音與聲韻實現 — 以台灣 EFL 學習者產出為例

Abstract

本文旨在研究台灣EFL 學習者對於英語高低重音之語音與聲韻之習得和實現。過去關於高低重音(pitch accent)相關的研究僅只探討其少數的面向，尤其大多數的文獻僅專注於語音層次的研究，聲韻層次的面向則較少人探討。因此，本研究納入高低重音之多個面向，企圖深究台灣EFL 學習者如何習得英語核心重音(nuclear accent)與核心前重音(prenuclear accent)之聲韻規則與種類，以及語音層次上的產出與表現。本研究收入二十二位台灣EFL 學習者參與錄音，以及二十二位美國英語母語人士參與錄音、擔任對照組。每位受試者唸了21 句全是用單音節文字構成的英語句子，EFL 學習者則額外唸了21 句和英語句子對照的中文句子。結果顯示，EFL 學習者比起英語母語人士明顯在句子中放了更多的重音，且比母語人士更易有連續重音(stressclash)的現象。至於重音的實現上，學習者與母語人士在核心重音的實現上並無太多不同，兩組主要的差別在於核心前重音的實現。母語人士比EFL 學習者呈現出較多種類的重音調型，而EFL 學習者在放重音的位置上也較為多變。就音調對整而言，學習者對於L+H*調型與母語人士對照組有所差別，且學習者的結果亦有性別上的差異。至於H*調型，EFL 學習者與母語人士在實現上並無不同。因此，此研究的結果顯示出，對學習者而言英語核心重音似乎比核心前重音容易習得。

This study examined the production of pitch accents in L2 English among Taiwan Mandarin learners. Previous studies on this issue have investigated only one or few aspects of pitch accents in L2 speakers’ production, and most of them have focused on differences on the phonetic level; phonological dimensions of pitch accents are often left undiscussed. This study set out to investigate the phonological choice and the phonetic implementation of nuclear and prenuclear accents produced by Mandarin learners of English. Twenty-two advanced Taiwan Mandarin EFL learners and 22 native American English speakers read 21 English monosyllabic stimuli embedded in a declarative carrier sentence. The EFL learners also read an additional list of 21 sentences in which phonotactically-matched Mandarin stimuli were embedded. After identifying the pitch accents in the sentences, each accent was analyzed according to its phonological tone type choices and phonetic tonal alignment. Results showed that the EFL learners assigned significantly more pitch accents than the native speakers, and were more likely to produce stress clash conditions. For pitch accent realization, little difference was found between the native and nonnative speakers with regards to the nuclear accent. The main difference lies in the prenuclear accent. The learners generally had a smaller tonal inventory at their disposal, and were more variable in their placement of prenuclear accents compared to their native counterparts. With regards to the tonal alignment, EFL speakers showed deviations of the L+H* tone in a gender-dependent fashion, while their alignment of the H* tone was fairly comparable. The results of this study imply that nuclear accents are easier to acquire for L2 learners possibly due to their prominent status, while prenuclear accents pose a problem for even advanced learners. Analyses on Mandarin data showed that the struggle may stem genuinely from difficulty in L2 learning, and could not be easily explained away by a direct negative transfer from Mandarin.