Law Thomas, Packman Ann, Onslow Mark, To Carol K-S, Tong Michael C-F, Lee Kathy Y-S
a The Australian Stuttering Research Centre , The University of Sydney , Sydney , Australia.
b Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery , The Chinese University of Hong Kong , NT , Hong Kong SAR.
Clin Linguist Phon. 2018;32(4):285-297. doi: 10.1080/02699206.2017.1359851. Epub 2017 Aug 30.
Cantonese is a tone language, in which the variation of the fundamental frequency contour of a syllable can change meaning. There are six different lexical tones in Cantonese. While research with Western languages has shown an association between stuttering and syllabic stress, nothing is known about whether stuttering in Cantonese speakers is associated with one or more of the six lexical tones. Such an association has been reported in conversational speech in Mandarin, which is also a tone language, but which varies markedly from Cantonese. Twenty-four native Cantonese-speaking adults who stutter participated in this study, ranging in age from 18-33 years. There were 18 men and 6 women. Participants read aloud 13 Cantonese syllables, each of which was produced with six contrastive lexical tones. All 78 syllables were embedded in the same carrier sentence, to reduce the influence of suprasegmental or linguistic stress, and were presented in random order. No significant differences were found for stuttering moments across the six lexical tones. It is suggested that this is because lexical tones, at least in Cantonese, do not place the task demands on the speech motor system that typify varying syllabic stress in Western languages: variations not only in fundamental frequency, but also in duration and intensity. The findings of this study suggest that treatments for adults who stutter in Western languages, such as speech restructuring, can be used with Cantonese speakers without undue attention to lexical tone.
粤语是一种声调语言，其中音节的基频轮廓变化会改变词义。粤语有六种不同的词汇声调。虽然对西方语言的研究表明口吃与音节重音之间存在关联，但对于说粤语的人口吃是否与六种词汇声调中的一种或多种有关却一无所知。在同样是声调语言但与粤语有显著差异的普通话的会话中，已经报道了这样一种关联。24名说粤语的口吃成年参与者参与了这项研究，年龄在18至33岁之间。其中有18名男性和6名女性。参与者大声朗读13个粤语音节，每个音节都用六种对比性词汇声调发音。所有78个音节都嵌入在同一个载体句子中，以减少超音段或语言重音的影响，并以随机顺序呈现。在六种词汇声调中，口吃时刻未发现显著差异。这表明，这是因为词汇声调，至少在粤语中，不会像西方语言中不同的音节重音那样对言语运动系统提出任务要求：不仅在基频上有变化，在时长和强度上也有变化。这项研究的结果表明，针对说西方语言的口吃成年人的治疗方法，如言语重构，可以用于说粤语的人，而无需过度关注词汇声调。
