Zhang Juan, Meng Yaxuan, Wu Chenggang, Yuan Zhen
Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China.
Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China.
Brain Sci. 2023 Jan 25;13(2):202. doi: 10.3390/brainsci13020202.
Extensive research has explored the perception of English lexical stress by Chinese EFL learners and tried to unveil the underlying mechanism of the prosodic transfer from a native tonal language to a non-native stress language. However, the role of the pitch as the shared cue by lexical stress and lexical tone during the transfer remains controversial when the segmental cue (i.e., reduced vowel) is absent. By employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements, the current study aimed to further investigate the role of the pitch during the prosodic transfer from L1 lexical tone to L2 lexical stress and the underlying neural responses. Two groups of adult Chinese EFL learners were compared, as both Mandarin and Cantonese are tonal languages with different levels of complexity. The results showed that Cantonese speakers relied more than Mandarin speakers on pitch cues, not only in their processing of English lexical stress but also in word recognition. Our findings are consistent with the arguments of and attest to the influence of native tonal language experience on second language acquisition. The results may have implications on pedagogical methods that pitch could be an important clue in second language teaching.
大量研究探讨了中国英语学习者对英语词汇重音的感知，并试图揭示从母语声调语言到非母语重音语言韵律迁移的潜在机制。然而，当缺乏音段线索（即元音弱化）时，音高作为词汇重音和词汇声调的共同线索在迁移过程中的作用仍存在争议。通过采用事件相关电位（ERP）测量，本研究旨在进一步探究音高在从第一语言词汇声调到第二语言词汇重音的韵律迁移过程中的作用以及潜在的神经反应。对两组成年中国英语学习者进行了比较，因为普通话和粤语都是具有不同复杂程度的声调语言。结果表明，说粤语的人比说普通话的人更依赖音高线索，不仅在处理英语词汇重音方面，而且在单词识别方面。我们的研究结果与[相关研究]的观点一致，并证明了母语声调语言经验对第二语言习得的影响。这些结果可能对教学方法有启示，即音高可能是第二语言教学中的一个重要线索。
