Utilizing Praat to Identify Neutral Tone Features of Mandarin Learners with L1 as Longshan Dialect

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-012-1_11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Neutral Tone in Mandarin; Pitch; Longshan Dialect; Praat; Software in Language Learning

Abstract

The neutral tone of Mandarin is well-known for its unique acoustic features, so foreign Mandarin learners and Chinese dialect speakers presumably have difficulty in producing the neutral tone. At present, some second/foreign language acquisition studies have investigated the pronunciation of the neutral tone by foreign learners [1], but there is a dearth of scholars who touch upon the production of this prosodic feature by Chinese dialect speakers. The present study aims to use an acoustic software to identify the features of the Mandarin neutral tone by Chinese dialect speakers. Specifically, the author used Praat to compare the production by two Longshan dialect speakers with that by two native Mandarin speakers. Praat clearly demonstrated that dialect speakers could not correctly produce the neutral tone. Their vowels bearing the neutral tone featured excessively long duration, non-standard pitch variation and range, as well as absent vowel centralization. The findings showcased the effective role of Praat in identifying the distinctive prosodic features of Chinese dialect speakers. Thus, the authors recommended the use of Praat in Mandarin teaching, which is conducive to the promotion of Mandarin nationwide.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yao Peng
AU  - Xinrui Li
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/12/09
TI  - Utilizing Praat to Identify Neutral Tone Features of Mandarin Learners with L1 as Longshan Dialect
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Educational Innovation and Multimedia Technology (EIMT 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 88
EP  - 97
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-012-1_11
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-012-1_11
ID  - Peng2022
ER  -