The Rhythm Differences between English and Chinese.doc

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1、英汉语在韵律方面的区别The Rhythm Differences between English and ChineseContentsAbstract.1Key Words.1I. Introduction.2II. Literature Review.2III. Word Rhythm.31. Word rhythm in English.32. Word rhythm in Chinese .43. Differences in word rhythm between English and Chinese44. Problems45. Techniques and solutions

2、 in teaching word rhythm in English5IV. Sentence Rhythm.91. Sentence rhythm in English92. Sentence rhythm in Chinese .93. Differences in sentence rhythm between English and Chinese104. Problems.105. Techniques and solutions in teaching sentence rhythm in English11V. The Relationship between Stress a

3、nd rhythm in English15VI. The Rhythm Differences between English and Chinese15VII. Conclusion.16References.17Abstract: Traditionally, teaching English pronunciation equals the teaching of English sounds. The majority of English learners believe that if they want to have good pronunciation, they need

4、 to work well just on individual sounds. The question is that mastering individual sounds of English hardly guarantee a students perfect pronunciation. According to our experience and observation, we find that quite a large number of students, still speak English in a way that it sounds choppy, or s

5、ometimes even incomprehensible. What makes their English speech so unnatural? What is the essence of English rhythm? Why is English rhythm so difficult for Chinese students? What are the most common types of errors that Chinese students make in English rhythm when speaking? Which techniques and solu

6、tions are useful in the learning and teaching of English rhythm? In addressing the questions posed above, this paper will attempt to explore the features of English rhythm and suggest a number of techniques for helping students speak English with good rhythm. The focus of the discussion will be on:

7、(1) word rhythm in English and Chinese; (2) sentence rhythm in English and Chinese; (3) the differences between English rhythm and Chinese rhythm; (4) a variety of practical kinesthetic, visual, and aural teaching solutions and activities are presented to solve the problems at the same time. Key wor

8、ds: stresses; English rhythm; Chinese rhythm; similarities and differences摘 要：从传统角度上看，教英语的发音等于对英语语音的教学。许多语言学习者认为，如果他们想要语音发音好，他们只需要发好单个的语言音素。但问题在于，掌握英语的个别的音素就能说一个学生的发音是好的吗？根据我们的经验和观察, 许多学生虽然能够发好单个音素，但并不能说一口地道的英语，有时甚至让听者难以理解。出现这种现象的原因是什么呢？英语节奏是什么？为什么英语节奏对中国学生就如此困难？中国学生在英语节奏上所犯的最常见的错误类型有那些？在教授英语节奏的过程中是

9、否有对学习和教学有实用价值的技巧和解决办法？为了寻求上述问题的答案，作者将从分析、总结英语发音节奏的主要特征、规律入手来以探寻英、汉语言的韵律异同，目的是更好得使学生能在了解并掌握英语语言韵律的基础上说一口地道、流利的英语。本文讨论的主要内容：（1）英、汉语言单词的节奏；（2）英、汉语言句子的节奏；（3）英、汉语言节奏的差异；(4) 与动觉，视觉和听觉有关的实际、有效的的解决方法。关键词：重音；英语韵律；汉语韵律；异同与差异I. IntroductionBased on our present study we find that although most Chinese students

10、can speak English words correctly and clearly, however, they will say English sentences word by word or phrase by phrase in roughly equal length of time and loudness. Most of them can hardly read unstressed syllables in a correct way, which either in speech or in conversation. Generally they speak E

11、nglish with a changeless accent which sounds choppy and incomprehensive. The reason of this phenomenon can be due to the fact that they have no idea about the differences between English rhythm and Chinese one. Nowadays quite a number of researchers have studied rhythm in the discoursal level, espec

12、ially in essays and poetry. However, rhythm does exist in smaller domains in both English and Chinese. Chinese rhythm exhibits much the same nature as that of English rhythm, although differences between them do exist. Our task is to find out the similarities as well as the differences to explore th

13、e solutions to the problems. In order to know the rhythmic properties of both languages, we should search large numbers of language data and try to find the mechanism which makes the rhythm of a language. I have studied both languages from an objective and scientific points of view and discovered, a

14、lthough the two languages differ greatly on the surface, yet they are basically the same in the deep structure. In the present thesis, I will compare English rhythm with SC rhythm under the discoursal level. My task is to introduce the latest study on English rhythm and make a comparison and contras

15、t between English rhythms with Chinese ones.II. Literature Review What is rhythm? Before we discuss the English and Chinese rhythm, we may have to explain what rhythm is. Dauer says in the unit “Rhythm” from his book Accurate English (1993): when we speak naturally, words are parts of phrases and lo

16、nger Sentences. What we hear is a sequence of syllables, like notes in music. The time relationships among syllables make up the rhythm of language. (p. 83) Rhythm, actually, is timing patterns among syllables, which, may not be the same in all languages. There are, particularly, two opposite types

17、of rhythm in languages: stress-timed and syllable-timed. According to Mackay (1985), stress-timed rhythm is determined by stressed syllables, which occur at regular intervals of time, with an uneven and changing numbers of unstressed syllables between them; syllable-timed rhythm is based on the tota

18、l number of syllables since each syllable takes approximately the same amount of time. English, with an alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, belongs to the second type, while Chinese, with nearly equal weight and time in all syllables, is syllable-timed. These two languages, therefore,

19、vary greatly in rhythm. Holliday (2000) also classifies rhythm into two types: 1. Syllabic Rhythm (Syllabic Timing) and Pedaling Rhythm. The first indicates the tempo depends on the syllable so that all syllables tend to be roughly the same length, for which he cites Japanese and French as good exam

20、ples. The latter one, Pedaling Rhythm (Foot Timing) indicates tempo depends on the foot, so that all feet tend to be roughly the same length of time. That is, in an utterance, if a foot is of three or four syllables, it will be articulated with the same duration as a foot is made up of only one syll

21、able. He cites English as a noticeable example of this type. David Abercrombie claims rhythm into another two types, too: 1) syllable-timed rhythm implies the periodic recurrence of movement supplied by the syllable-producing, the process of which is the chest-pluses, with the syllables recurring at

22、 equal intervals of time they are isochronous. French, Spanish, Yoruba and Hindi have such a sort of rhythm.2) stress-timed rhythm implies periodic recurrence of movement supplied by the stress-producing, and process of which is the stress pluses, and hence the stressed syllables are isochronous. En

23、glish, Russian, Arabic can illustrate this mode best.Whether Chinese belongs to a syllable-timed language or stress-timed language has been still under discussion. Some writers like Professor T. K. Kwei says it belongs syllable-timed language. Other hold the just opposite points of view with them. M

24、r. Ye Shengtao criticized severely the intolerable syllable-timed rhythm used in teaching school children the Chinese language. The present author holds identical views with Mr. Yeshengtao. Numerous examples from TV serials and radio plays show that none of the characters speak Chinese in a syllable

25、-timed rhythm. But Cantonese speakers of Putonghua from Hongkong and Guangdong Province are possible exceptions.III. Word Rhythm in English1. Word rhythm in EnglishEnglish words may be composed of one or more syllables. In words of two or more syllables, one syllable (stressed syllable) is stronger

26、than the others (unstressed syllable(s) in the one and same word. A stressed syllable is louder, longer, clearer, and higher in pitch than unstressed syllables. Thus, the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables helps to create the word rhythm in English, which displays an alternative change

27、 in strength, length, and pitch. The importance of syllable stress has been explained by Gilbert (1994): “this is because English speakers appear to store vocabulary with stress patterns, so a stress mistake can throw a conversation off track, especially if the speakers control of English vowel soun

28、ds is uncertain”. Therefore, the more frequently speakers misuse stress, the more effort listeners have to make to understand what the speaker say. 2. Words rhythm in Chinese Chinese, a tone language with four kinds of tone patterns, with which stress in each Chinese syllable is equally strong, so t

29、he Chinese students generally give each Chinese syllable almost the same strength, length, and pitch when speaking. The differences of the four tones make Chinese words sound changing regularly, that is, the different tones of Chinese words make the Chinese word rhythm. 3. Differences in word rhythm

30、 between English and ChineseHaving a clear idea of word stress pattern of English is very important to our students. In English, there are three stress patterns, primary stress, secondary stress and the unstressed or zero stress. Different kinds of syllables have different strength, length, and pitc

31、h, while the stresses of Chinese syllables have almost the same strength, length, and pitch. 4. Common problems in word rhythm Not realizing the importance of syllable stress in English, many Chinese students tend to ignore stress patterns of English words. When reading or speaking they will put str

32、ess in any one of the syllables in a word randomly and this may cause misunderstanding problems. For example: “The movie I saw yesterday was TERrific”, said a student. In the word “terrific,” he put the stress on the first syllable rather than the second one; therefore, what we heard was not “terRIf

33、ic” but “TERrified” which will easily bring misunderstanding problems for listeners to get the meaning of a word based on its stress pattern. Another common problem our students usually make about English word rhythm is that they tend to give each syllable almost the same strength, length, and pitch

34、. As stress in each Chinese syllable is equally strong, most students will treat English words in the same way as they do in Chinese. Few students have a clear idea on how to weaken and reduce unstressed syllables. A very good example is the word “CHOcolate.” Many Chinese students say “CHO CO LATE,”

35、 which give equal length of time to each syllable apparently due to influence of the rhythm of Chinese. In English, a very important characteristic about word stress pattern that our students often ignore is that vowels in unstressed syllables are mostly reduced to a short central vowel / / or / i /

36、, like the vowels reduced in the second and third syllable of “CHOcolate.” It is the vowel reduction that makes the length of time, strength, and pitch different between stressed and unstressed syllables. Gilbert (1987) has pointed out that “clarity of the vowel is a particularly difficult concept f

37、or many students since in their languages all vowels are spoken in a full, clear way” (p. 36). This phenomenon, therefore, should deserve more attention in the learning and teaching of English word rhythm. 5. Techniques and solutions in teaching word rhythmImitation is one of the best ways to learn

38、word rhythm by having students listen and repeat after the tape or the teacher, but definitely this is not enough. We suggest that the teacher points out what students problems are in word rhythm and then conclude ways to help them solve their problems. In the following discussion, we will present t

39、wo aspects of techniques or solutions in teaching word rhythm of English, namely, 1) the building of word stress pattern, and 2) stress production in terms of syllable strength, length, and pitch. 5.1. The building of word stress pattern 5.1.1 Using visual effects on the blackboard or flashcards. Wh

40、en teaching a new word, the teacher needs to teach not only the phonemes but its stress pattern of the word as well, that is, the teacher should emphasize stressed syllables by using various visual effects. Examples: terRIfic terrific ter ri fic 5.1.2. Predicting the stress position in words. Althou

41、gh many pronunciation textbooks provide word stress pattern rules for our students, we find these rule are not only unsystematic, but also incomplete as well. We suggest that our teachers help students discover and summarize rules instead of telling them rules during teaching. For example, they can

42、generate word stress pattern rules from the words that they have learned and apply the rules to the words that they havent learned. In this way, students can not only memorize the rules but internalize them. In Beisbiers Sounds Great book 1 &2 (1994), there are many activities for recognition and di

43、scovery of word stress pattern rules. Examples: Known words unknown words1) electric terrific italic academic Rule: In words ending in -ic, the main stress fall on the syllable before -ic. 2) baseball spaceshiphigh school instant noodles Rule: In compound common nouns made up of noun plus noun or ad

44、jective plus noun, the main stress is generally put on the first constituent not the second, which is usually place of stress for a free phrase. 5.1.3. Practicing various stresses to alter meaning. This activity of practicing various stresses will indicate that different positions of stress will res

45、ult in different word meanings of words, which help students be fully aware of the effects of different stress patterns on word meaning. For example, in the words “history” and “history”, different position of word stress his and tor result in the difference in meaning. The unit “Word Stress Pattern

46、s” by Gilberts Clear Speech (1993) offers well-designed activitivies for this purpose. Examples: Students can work in pairs. Student A can choose to ask questions marked (a) or (b), noticing that the stress in sentence (a) and (b) patterns are different. Student B has to identify the stress pattern

47、that Student A uses and then choose an appropriate answer. Questions Answers1). (a) is it elementary? No, its advanced. (b) Is it a lemon tree? No, an orange tree. 2). (a) Is that Europe? No, its China. (b) Is that your rope? No, its hers. 3). (a) What is in the desert? Sand. (b) Whats in the dessert? Sugar. (p.69) This activity is especially helpful to have students pay full attention to stress used in compound nouns. In compound common nouns, the main or primary stress is generally on the first element, not on the sec