中文母語人士對英文「塞音」之口說實證研究

Abstract

本研究旨在探討臺灣英語學習者英語口說時的塞音表現及影響其表現的可 能因素，包含英文程度、性別、音位、元音特性等。實驗方法為一英語口說測驗。 研究對象共分四組:兩組母語組(中文母語與英文母語)，另兩組為二語組，依 其英文程度分低程度與高程度，除中文母語組為 32 人外，其餘各組皆為 16 人， 男女各半。研究發現，英語二語學習者的塞音表現與其母語及英文程度呈現顯著相關 性，低程度學習者仍受母語影響，高程度學習者已習得英語塞音規則與噪音起始 時間。此外，研究亦發現性別並非影響英語二語學習者塞音表現之關鍵因素，男 性與女性二語學習者之塞音表現並無顯著差異。然音位對二語學習者之塞音表現 則具顯著影響，影響順序由大到小依次為軟齶音、其次為齒齦音及雙唇音。最後， 元音亦是影響研究對象塞音表現的關鍵因素之一，由難而易依序為塞音出現在低 元音之前時、其次是出現在高元音之前時。

This present study investigated L2 English stops produced by native speakers of Chinese with different L2 proficiency levels. Three factors regarding stop productions were also examined, which were gender, place of articulation, and vowel context. High and low achievers of English were recruited as the experimental groups and native speakers of English as the control group, each of which consisted of 16 participants, including 8 males and 8 females. Every participant took part in a production experiment, in which they were asked to read aloud the target words in an embedded sentence.The results of this research showed significant the effect for transfer and L2 proficiency, in that high achievers outperformed low achievers for acquiring native-like English stops. However, in respect to the gender effect, no significant differences could be reached. In other words, our male and female participants performed similarly for stop productions. The effect of place of articulation, however, was reported to be significant, suggesting that different places of articulation resulted in varied durations for stops. Lastly, the factor of vowel context was also significant, so the lengths of stops differed according to the context of their following vowels.