A Cross-Language Study of Perception of Lexical Stress in English |
| |
Authors: | Vickie Y. Yu Jean E. Andruski |
| |
Affiliation: | (1) Department of Medicine, Center for Immigrant Health, New York University School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, OBV, CD-402, 10016 New York, NY, USA;(2) Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA;(3) Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA |
| |
Abstract: | This study investigates the question of whether language background affects the perception of lexical stress in English. Thirty native English speakers and 30 native Chinese learners of English participated in a stressed-syllable identification task and a discrimination task involving three types of stimuli (real words/pseudowords/hums). The results show that both language groups were able to identify and discriminate stress patterns. Lexical and segmental information affected the English and Chinese speakers in varying degrees. English and Chinese speakers showed different response patterns to trochaic vs. iambic stress across the three types of stimuli. An acoustic analysis revealed that two language groups used different acoustic cues to process lexical stress. The findings suggest that the different degrees of lexical and segmental effects can be explained by language background, which in turn supports the hypothesis that language background affects the perception of lexical stress in English. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|