台灣英語學習者母音感知與產製

Vowel Perception and Production by EFL Students in Taiwan

陳品宇(Chen Pin-Yu)

指導教授 ： 萬依萍

國立政治大學/外國語文學院/語言學研究所/碩士(2018年)

https://doi.org/10.6814/THE.NCCU.GIL.003.2018.A07

摘要

外國口音是外語學習者明顯的特質。不同的口音往往能暗示該L2學習者的L1為何。這說明了L1對L2有相當的影響。在影響發音的各種因素中，母音便是其中一項不容忽略的特質。本篇論文主要研究的是台灣以英語為L2而台灣華語為L1的學習者(TM)在母音的產製以及認知的表現。同時也針對L2在不同的學習歷程中母音的產製及認知建構進行研究。為了上述研究目的，本論文一共對台灣華語以英語為L2的學習者採取了四種實驗還有以美式英語為L1的母語人士(AE)採取三種實驗來進行母音的產製以及認知分析及研究。
實驗一是以及實驗二為母音產製實驗，實驗一為英語並且所有母音都包容在[hVd]的環境而實驗二為中文。實驗三以及實驗四則是母音認知測驗，皆為英語實驗，而在認知實驗中母音則包容在[bVt]的環境中。英語母語人士在本次實驗扮演角色為驗證測驗內容信度以及作為控制組以比對L2組別之表現。本論文共採納三個傳統分析方式嘗試對於學習者的發展進行建構及探討L1及L2之間的交互影響，三種分析方式分別是認知類化模型PAM (Best, 1995)、言語學習模型SLM (Flege, 1995)以及CPH對比分析假說(Lado, 1957)。
實驗I、III、IV結果指出TM以及AE兩組有顯著的差異。綜合實驗II，我們更近一步發現L1以及L2之間無論是產製或是認知上都有明顯的交互影響。本次研究的大部份結果都與SLM還有PAM預測，惟有零星錯誤與先前的研究不一致。同時我們也藉由中級學習者在[e]、[æ] 以及 [ɛ]的表現上發現母音學習會有U型成長的趨勢。大致上來說，L2組在本次研究的認知表現以及產製表現都相當一致，僅少數零星的不一致會出現在[ɪ] 還有 [o]、[ɔ] 以及[ʊ]上。本篇論文描述了台灣英語學習者的母音建構過程以及進階解釋其在認知及產製上的相互影響並且同時研究了學習者的L1、L2之間的影響遷移。

關鍵字

母音習得 ； 第二語言習得 ； 聲學分析 ； 母音分析 ； 中介語

並列摘要

This thesis investigates vowels produced and perceived by English learners in Taiwan. Three main questions were inspected: i) learners’ development process of perception and production of English and Mandarin vowels of Taiwan Mandarin English learners ii) the symmetry and asymmetry between the perception and production models iii) whether there is any inter- or intra-interference on L1 and L2 vowels. We have constructed the model of the process of the production and perception development of English (L2) vowels of Taiwan Mandarin (TM) speakers who are studying English as a second language by inspecting their speaking and listening performances on certain tasks in this thesis. We have conducted four experiments on TM L2 learners of English and three experiments on American English native (AE) speakers.
The first and second experiments were to test the pronunciation English and Mandarin vowels, where the English vowels were situated in the fixed environment of [hVd], and where the Mandarin vowels were combined in a random onset and a fixed coda [l]. The third and fourth experiments were two English vowel perception tests, consisting of English vowels placed in [bVt]. The AE group performed as the control group showing that the test items in the experiments are recognizable and to provide a contrast to the vowels performed by the L2 learners. Three standard models, the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (Lado, 1957), the Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best, 1995) and the Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995) were employed to explain and construct the development model and the inter-group and intra-group interferences.
The results of the performance of the TM and AE groups in Experiments I, III and IV provide evidence for differences in the perception and production of vowels between the native speakers and the L2 learners.
Along with experiment II, the experiments I, II and IV further implies the inter- and intra- interferences on L1 and L2 vowels in both production and perception. Most of our findings are congruent with the PAM and the SLM, while some of the findings on errors are not consistent with those in previous studies. Possible evidence for U-shaped learning is found in our results in the performance of [e], [æ] and [ɛ] by the intermediate levels. Overall, the perceptual errors were in symmetry with their production performance, while only a few vowels, such as [ɪ] and [o], [ɔ] and [ʊ], showed more asymmetrical errors in production rather than in perception. This thesis depicts a model of the development of the processing of English vowels by TM speakers and further examines how symmetry and asymmetry take place and inspects the degree of L1 transfer.

並列關鍵字

Vowel acquisition ； Vowels ； SLA ； Second language acquisition ； Acoustic analysis ； Interlanguage ； Vowel analysis

參考文獻

Baker, W., & Trofimovich, P. (2006). Perceptual paths to accurate production of L2 vowels: The role of individual differences. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 44(3), 231-250.

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Best, C.T., & Tyler, M.D. (2007). Nonnative and second-language speech perception: Commonalities and complementarities. Language experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege, 1334, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam.

Boersma, P. (2001). Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer. Glot International, 5(9/10), 341-345.

Bowerman, M. (1982). Starting to talk worse: Clues to language acquisition from children's late speech errors. In S. Strauss (Ed.), U shaped behavioral growth (pp. 101-145). New York: Academic Press.