【作者】 李景娜；

【导师】 梅德明；

【作者基本信息】 上海外国语大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2014， 博士

【摘要】 外国口音或外国腔指操母语者在说二语时由于受到自身母语语音的影响而出现的偏离二语语音规范的现象。外国口音不仅会影响言语的可理解度，较浓重的外国口音甚至会引起听话人语言态度的改变。在全球化的背景下，中国英语学习者在各种英语舞台上操着不同程度的外国口音展现着自我。学习者外国口音的特殊之处在哪？听者是如何感知外国口音的？不同背景的听者对外国口音到底有着怎样的感觉？一系列的相关问题清晰地显示出对于外国口音研究的必要性和紧迫性。国外对外国口音的感知研究，无论是从理论而言还是就实证来说，成果都较为丰硕，然而通过文献检索发现，类似研究在国内却甚为鲜见。基于此，本文依据语音范畴感知模型，从一个新的视角即以听者对口音的感知作为切入点，对中国英语学习者在语音习得中表现出的外国口音进行了实证性的探究。笔者按照英语中的基本句式从中国英语学习者语音数据库（ESCCL）的朗读语料部分选取了12个对话/句子（平均单词数为20个，平均时长为8080.22毫秒）作为本文的感知语料。每个对话/句子都由2位发音人朗读，构成2种不同的语音形式。随后，通过Praat软件调整音高参数，为每个对话/句子合成出2种新的语音形式。这4种语音形式与1位英语母语者的朗读共同构成了同一个对话/句子的5种不同的语音形式。方便起见，依据这5种语音形式与英语语音范畴的符合度，研究中把它们分别简称为音好调好、音好调差、音差调好、音差调差和英语原声。本研究共获得了60个语音刺激作为感知语料，随后笔者利用E-prime软件设计了口音感知实验，在由英美教师、英美学生、中国教师和中国学生4个组别构成的90名听者中考察了不同背景的听话人对外国口音的感知。具体来说，本文的研究问题有三：（1）发音和语调在听者对外国口音感知判断中的作用如何？（2）听者的自身因素（母语、教学经验（在文中主要指与外国口音的接触量）和性别）对其感知口音有何影响？（3）听者在口音感知中的认知方式以及对口音的语言态度如何？研究发现，发音和语调在听者对外国口音的感知中都具有一定的效应，其中发音的作用具有显著性。发音越符合英语语音规范，听者所感知到的外国口音程度就越低；而在发音符合度一致的情况下，语调越接近于英语语音规范，相应地外国口音程度也会越低。此外，语调的作用存在组别性差异：对英美教师组、英美学生组和中国教师组来说，语调的影响并不显著；而对中国学生组而言，语调在列举句式和主从复合句中对判断音好两种语音形式的口音程度具有显著影响。就听者的自身因素而言，听者的母语对其感知口音有着显著性影响，英美听者组对口音的敏感度要明显高于中国听者组。教学经验对听者的口音感知没有显著影响，但影响听者对口音的容忍度，具体表现为英美教师组对外国口音的容忍度普遍高于英美学生组，而中国教师组对外国口音的容忍度则低于中国学生组。研究结果在显示听者的母语背景对口音感知影响的同时，也在一定程度上展示出中国教师组对语言形式准确性的关注和把握力度。此外，就整体来看，听者的性别对其感知两种音好语音形式和英语原声的口音程度有显著性影响，且女性对口音的敏感度和容忍度普遍高于男性。在口音感知的认知方式上，多数听者采用了“自下而上”和“自上而下”相结合的交互式认知模式，这反映出听者对带有口音言语的可理解度以及对口音的模式化印象会影响到他们对口音的感知。口音程度判断的过程是听者把听觉输入的语音信息与自己头脑中的目的语语音原型相比较的过程，不同程度的口音反映的是语音信息与相关语音原型感知距离的差异，而不同的感知距离也能够解释英、汉语听者对口音敏感度的差异。对口音感知所需反应时的考察也揭示出不同程度口音的感知难度差异以及不同母语背景的听者在口音敏感度方面的差异。研究访谈和问卷调查结果表明，听者的母语对其语言态度的影响较为明显，英美听者组对口音的容忍度普遍要比中国听者组高；而教学经验也发挥着一定的作用，就英美组而言，与英美学生组相比，英美教师组的容忍度普遍较高，而中国组的情况则刚好相反。总体来看，听者对口音轻重程度的感知在很大程度上取决于自身对口音的敏感度和容忍度，其中敏感度与听者的母语相关，处于第一位，而容忍度与听者的语言态度和语言经验相关，处在第二位。本文采用了定量和定性相结合的研究方法，考察了听者对中国英语学习者外国口音的感知，定量研究结果得到了定性研究结果的佐证，研究结果可信。本文能够为国内二语语音习得研究提供一个新的考察视角，有利于语音习得理论的发展，研究结果对语音教学、语音能力评估以及语音教材编写也有较高的参考价值。更多还原

【Abstract】 Foreign accent refers to the deviation of the speaker’s pronunciation from thenorms of Second Language (L2) due to the influence of his/her mother tongue.Foreign accent can affect speech comprehensibility and even lead to change inlisteners’ language attitudes. In the context of globalization, Chinese learners ofEnglish as a foreign language (EFL) are presenting themselves on diverse occasionswith a certain degree of foreign accent. What are the features of foreign accent ofChinese EFL learners? How do listeners perceive such kind of accent? How dolisteners of different backgrounds react to it? A series of questions remind us of thefact that research in foreign accent is of not only great necessity but much urgency.With relatively large amount of research abroad in both theoretical and practical sense,perception studies in foreign accent are rarely found in China though. Based on theperception models of speech categories, the present study aims to investigate listeners’perception of foreign accent in the speech of Chinese EFL learners.12dialogues/sentences with an average of20words and a mean duration of8080.22milliseconds were selected from the reading section of the English SpeechCorpus of Chinese Learners (ESCCL). Representing the basic English sentencepatterns, they were employed as the perception materials in the present study. Each ofthe dialogues/sentences was read by two speakers respectively, which thus comprisedtwo types of speech forms of the dialogue/sentence. Two new types of speech formsof each dialogue/sentence were synthesized by means of purposefully modifying thepitch parameter with the help of the Praat software. Together with thedialogues/sentences read by one English native speaker, five types of speech forms ofthe same dialogue/sentence were ultimately obtained. For convenience, the speechforms were recognized simply as Good Articulation with Good Intonation (GAGI),Good Articulation with Poor Intonation (GAPI), Poor Articulation with GoodIntonation (PAGI), Poor Articulation with Poor Intonation (PAPI), and the EnglishOriginal (EO) respectively, based on their different closeness to the English speech categories. Therefore, there were60speech stimuli in this research. Taking thesespeech stimuli as the perception materials, this study designed the perceptionexperiment with the E-prime software and explored the perception of foreign accentby90listeners, who were divided into four groups, namely the English Teacher (ET)group, the English Student (ES) group, the Chinese Teacher (CT) group and theChinese Student (CS) group. Specifically, this study aims to answer the followingthree research questions:(1) What are the influences of articulation and intonation onlisteners’ perception of foreign accent produced by Chinese EFL learners?;(2) Whatare the influences of listener factors on their perception of foreign accent produced byChinese EFL learners?; and (3) What are listeners’ language attitudes towards accentas well as their cognitive modes in accent perception?Research results show that both articulation and intonation can influencelisteners’ perception of foreign accent, with articulation playing a significant role inthis process. The better the articulation conforms to the English pronunciation norms,the lower the degree of the perceived accent is. When articulation keeps the same, themore proper intonation can lower the degree of perceived accent. What’s more, theinfluence of intonation depends on different groups of listeners: for the ET, ES andCT groups, its influence is not significant, while for the CS group, its influence issignificant when articulation conforms to the pronunciation norms in enumeratingsentences and complex sentences.Concerning listener factors, listeners’ native language can significantly influencetheir perception of accent. The English listeners are more sensitive to foreign accentthan the Chinese listeners. Teaching experience (mainly referring to amount ofexposure to foreign accent here) does not have a significant influence on accentperception, and its restricted influence is mainly concerned with listeners’tolerance offoreign accent. The ET group tends to be more tolerant of heavy accent than the ESgroup, whereas the CT group tends to be less tolerant than the CS group, showingstrong effects of mother tongue on accent perception and great emphasis on accuracyof L2forms in L2formal instruction in China. Finally, gender has a significantinfluence on listeners’ perception of GAGI, GAPI and EO, and female listeners generally tend to be more sensitive and tolerant than males.As for the cognitive modes in accent perception, a majority of listeners adopt aninteractive way which involves both bottom-up and top-down cognitive processes,suggesting that speech comprehensibility and accent stereotyping can exert someinfluence on listeners’ accent perception. When listeners judge the degree ofaccentedness, they are often tempted to compare the sound input with the Englishspeech prototypes set in their own minds. Different degrees of accentedness reflectdifferent perception distances between sound input and relevant speech prototypes inthe target language, and different perception distances explain the variation inperception sensitivity between English listeners and Chinese listeners. In addition,comparison of response time in accent perception shows differences in degrees ofboth accent perception difficulty and listeners’sensitivity. Results of the interview andthe questionnaire show that the listeners’native language is a very influential factor intheir language attitudes towards foreign accent, the English listeners being moretolerant than the Chinese listeners. The listeners’ teaching experience also influencestheir attitudes: the ET group is generally more tolerant of accent than the ES group,while it is the opposite in the Chinese listeners’ case. In general, listeners’ perceptionof accent depends to a large extent on their sensitivity and tolerance, in which theformer, playing a first and foremost part, is closely related to listeners’ nativelanguage, while the latter, next to sensitivity, is more associated with languageattitudes and linguistic experience.This study employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigatelisteners’ perception of foreign accent. The qualitative analysis lends supports to thequantitative results, making them more tenable and convincing. The present studyprovides a new perspective for Second Language Phonological Acquisition (SLPA)research in China, promotes the theoretical development in phonological acquisitionin a large sense. Moreover, this research is of much value and great help topronunciation teaching, speech evaluation and phonetic textbook compiling.更多还原