外國腔語音感知實驗與頻譜分析 - 以北美籍華語學習者為例

Foreign Accent Perception and Spectral Analysis of North American Learners of Mandarin

羅智銘(Rufe James H.)

指導教授 ： 曾金金

國立臺灣師範大學/國際與社會科學學院/華語文教學系/碩士(2022年)

https://doi.org/10.6345/NTNU202201757

摘要

華語學習者在學習中文的過程中，經常伴隨著聲調、語調或語音不 準確等問題， 於是出現典型的「洋腔洋調」， 而「洋腔洋調」不只是發 音上的一大問題， 同時也涉及了「聲調」和「腔調」二個層面。 綜觀華 語教學領域， 絕大多數的口語研究著重於語音教學和聲調教學， 但本研 究者發現， 有些華語學習者， 就算能夠準確掌握語音或聲調， 但還是可 以從其發音聽出所謂的「外國腔」。 「外國腔」的確是個複雜又涉及不 同層面的問題， 但除了語音和聲調之外， 到底還有哪些因素會導致所謂 的「外國腔」呢？

本語音實驗為腔調感知測試，本研究者假設在大於 2,000 Hz 的聲音 高頻區， 是影響聽辨外國腔的重要區帶， 倘若諧波能量過大， 則會產生 明顯的外國腔；反之，若過濾 2,000 Hz以上的高頻區，臺灣母語者則較無 法聽辨出外國腔，或者會猶豫一下才能判斷。

準備語音材料階段，本研究者邀請了 36 位（18 位男性、18 位女性） 擔任錄音人員，各組分別有 8 位北美人，5 位中國人和 5 位臺灣人。首先 請每位錄音人員錄製一段音檔， 內容為「一、二、三、四、五、六、七、 八、九、十」，要求每個數字之間有適當的停頓，共取得 18 段音檔，其 中， 本研究者特別確認北美籍錄音人員的音檔沒有任何聲調上的錯誤， 以控制聲調的變項；後續複製這 16 位北美籍錄音人員（8 位北美男性、8 位北美女性）的音檔，並將 2000 Hz 至 20,000 Hz 之間的頻率範圍過濾掉， 再與原本的 18 段音檔隨機排序並合併成 26 段的測試材料。

本實驗邀請 29 位臺灣母語者擔任審聽人，採取「盲測」，審聽人在 不知道錄音人員語言背景的前提下， 由本研究者播放音檔， 請審聽人針 對每段音檔進行感知區辨：「臺灣腔」、「中國腔」、「外國腔」、或 「不確定」，結束後填寫問卷。

iii 研究發現，審聽人在感知北美男性錄音人員的腔調，原始音檔的準 確度未達到 50%（48%），過濾版之準確度更低，只有 39%，而審聽人在 感知北美女性錄音人員的腔調，原始音檔的準確度為 55%，過濾版之準 確度有 48%。這明顯的差距，證明了大於 2,000 Hz 的高頻頻率區的確會 影響華語母語者對美國華語學習者的「腔調」感知。

從審聽人的問卷分析，審聽人在判斷「外國腔」的主要因素，聲音 或音色（共鳴位置、鼻音重、太大聲）佔 46.4%，聲調 32.2%，聲母或韻 母 17.9%，以及音尾 3.6%；將近一半的審聽人反應「外國腔」之罪魁禍 首其實是「洋腔」，而不是「洋調」。

關鍵字

頻譜分佈 ； 音質 ； 外國腔 ； 發音設定 ； 發聲設定 ； 共鳴

並列摘要

As learners of Chinese are learning the language, it is quite common for Chinese language learners (especially from Western countries) to have general performance issues with their Chinese phonetics, tones, intonation, prosody, etc. Native Chinese language teachers will often describe this phenomenon as 洋腔 洋調 (yáng-qiāng yáng-diào), which can be roughly translated as “Western accent, Western tones.” “yáng-qiāng yáng-diào” is not just a phonetic and tone performance issue – voice quality has significant implications on a Western learner’s overall Chinese accent performance. Based on a general overview of past Chinese pronunciation pedagogy research, it is evident that the majority of research focuses on Chinese phonetic and tone instruction, virtually ignoring voice quality. Based on this researcher’s observations, even when learners of Chinese have achieved proficiency in Chinese phonetics and tones, they often will still have a foreign accent. This issue begs the question – other than phonetic and tone performance, what other issues lead to foreign accents in Chinese language learners?

In this accent perception experiment, the researcher hypothesizes that the foreign accents (or voice qualities) of North American learners of Chinese primarily originate from frequency bands above 2,000 Hz. If there is sufficient harmonic energy in this bandwidth region, Taiwanese Mandarin speakers should detect a foreign accent. In contrast, if this bandwidth region is filtered out using low pass filters in Praat, the researcher hypothesizes that Taiwanese Mandarin speakers will have more difficulty detecting foreign accents in North American speakers of Chinese.

The results of this experiment overall support this hypothesis. When listening to the unfiltered original audio files of the North American male subjects, 48% of Taiwanese listeners detected foreign accents. However, when listening to the low-pass filtered audio files of the North American male subjects, only 39% of Taiwanese listeners detected foreign accents. When listening to the

v unfiltered original audio files of the North American female subjects, 55% of Taiwanese listeners detected foreign accents. However, when listening to the low-pass filtered audio files of the North American male subjects, only 48% of Taiwanese listeners detected foreign accents.

Furthermore, in a post-experiment survey, Taiwanese listeners were asked to specify the main factors they utilized in detecting foreign accents of the audio subjects. Out of the various factors listed, the most cited factor for accent detection was voice quality (46.4%), followed by tones (32.2%) and finally phonetics (17.9%). It is clear that voice quality plays a major role in the overall perception of accents, and has important implications for learners of Chinese, who wish to achieve higher performance in pronunciation and overall accent quality.

並列關鍵字

voice quality ； speech acoustics ； spectral analysis ； vocology ； accents

參考文獻

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