Different acoustic cues for emphasis in teaching English word stress to Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners of different proficiencies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2016/07/0019/000278Keywords:
English word stress, Cantonese loanwords, coustic cues, speaker proficiencyAbstract
The present study examined English word stress produced by twenty-two (11 highly proficient and 11 less proficient) native adult speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese (CS) learning English as a second language (ESL), in comparison with that produced by five native English speakers (NS). All participants read four English donor words, and CS also read the corresponding Cantonese loanwords. The three acoustic cues for stress, namely pitch (F0), duration (length) and intensity (loudness) values of the vowels were obtained from all syllables. While vowel duration was found to be the dominant cue, followed by F0, in distinguishing stressed and unstressed syllables in all speakers’ production, HCS may have overused F0 and LCS may have underused vowel duration.
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Copyright (c) 2016 Wience Wing Sze Lai, Manwa Lawrence Ng (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
