International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Input stamp stick
Perceptual Level [s tam[H]] [s tik[H]]
Operative Level
a. epenthesis [si tam[H]] [si tik[H]]
b. tone insertion [si[L] tam[H]] [si[L] tik[H]]
Surface [si[L] tam[H]] [si[L] tik[H]]
Unlike tone, pitch is not the only phonetic cue to stress, but so are intensity and duration (and even vowel
quality). The assumption of pitch as the dominant phonetic cue to stress requires evidence to prove that pitch
overrides intensity and duration (Yip, 2002), and this is what this study aims to achieve.
English Word Stress Produced by Chinese Speakers
Among the fewer number of studies on the production of English word stress by Cantonese ESL speakers,
Chan (2007) and Luke (2000) appeared to have greater relevance to the present study.
In Chan (2007), 15 Cantonese speakers of English were instructed to produce eight stimuli of the nonsense
word “bebe” embedded in a carrier sentence with word stress placed on either of the two syllables. The results
showed that Cantonese speakers could effectively represent word stress by manipulating duration, intensity and
fundamental frequency.
Since individual differences may exist and participants of different proficiencies may vary in their use of the
phonetic cues, the current study was designed to address this issue using different statistical analyses, with
classification of highly proficient ESL speakers and low proficient ones.
In Luke (2000), the systematic Cantonese tone assignment to English syllables was first proposed based on
the word syllabicity and function, and the position of word stress, as illustrated in Table 3.:
Table 3. Mapping of English stress to Cantonese tones
English Words IPA Cantonese Tones
Apple /∪Θp↔l/ H-L
Consider /k↔n.∪sΙ.d↔/ M-H-L
physical /∪fΙ.zΙ.k↔l/ H-L-L
Note. Primarily stressed syllables usually receive a high tone (Luke, 2000).
Luke’s participants included four native Cantonese speakers (two males and two females) and two British
English native speakers (one male and one female). They were asked to read aloud a list of single words,
compounds, phrases and sentences. The audio signals underwent acoustic analyses and results confirmed all of
the predictions made on monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, content and form words and the intersyllabic rule.
It was generalised that Cantonese learners distinguished mainly two stress levels - stress and non-stress, with
stressed syllables being assigned an H tone and unstressed syllables assigned an M or L tone. The intersyllabic
rule applied to syllables between strong ones (assigned an H or M tone) by modifying these intervening tones in
polysyllabic words, phrases and sentences.
Though Luke (2000)’s study is of a relatively small scale, its systematic classification of words based on their
syllabicity and functions, and confirmed predictions provided a good ground for future studies of Cantonese’s
production of English stress, especially in polysyllabic words.
Relatively more studies targeted on English word stress production by Mandarin speakers. Among them, both
Lai (2008) and Zhang (2008) examined four phonetic cues to English word stress, namely F0, duration, intensity
and vowel quality, but only Lai (2008) distinguished advanced and beginning Chinese English speakers.
Although the present study had focus on Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners and the exclusion of vowel quality
from the scope of analyses, reference was made to both Lai (2008) and Zhang (2008) with the following
modifications. First, the importance of intensity in stress production, which was not tested alone in Zhang
(2008), was also investigated. Second, the individual importance of duration and F0 was also compared. Third,
due to the possible influence of L2 English competence on the production abilities of non-native sounds (Flege,
Bohn, & Jang, 1997), participants were classified according to their target language proficiency, and the results
of participants with different proficiency levels of the target language were compared.
The current research examined English word stress produced by native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese
who were learning English as a second language (ESL). Extending from Lai (2004) and Lai, et al. (2011) which
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