Research Article
An Experimental Study on the Intelligibility of English Fricatives by Cantonese and Mandarin Speakers
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.13-10-2023.2341276, author={Yiyang Qiu and Xiaolin He and Wenyu Zhang and Ruyi Lin and Ying Yang and Keting Ou and Hongyan Wang}, title={An Experimental Study on the Intelligibility of English Fricatives by Cantonese and Mandarin Speakers}, proceedings={Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education, NMDME 2023, October 13--15, 2023, Xi’an, China}, publisher={EAI}, proceedings_a={NMDME}, year={2024}, month={1}, keywords={intelligibility fricatives cantonese english}, doi={10.4108/eai.13-10-2023.2341276} }- Yiyang Qiu
Xiaolin He
Wenyu Zhang
Ruyi Lin
Ying Yang
Keting Ou
Hongyan Wang
Year: 2024
An Experimental Study on the Intelligibility of English Fricatives by Cantonese and Mandarin Speakers
NMDME
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.13-10-2023.2341276
Abstract
English pronunciation can vary significantly depending on different speakers' accents. In one of Chinese dialects, Cantonese-speaking regions, where Cantonese has led to English pronunciation properties in communicative and teaching activities. To address this situation, this research conducted an experiment to test the intelligibility of Cantonese English speakers focused on the features of English fricatives. The results in three perspectives in terms of three types of sound according to Flege’s Speech Learning Model (new sound, similar sound, identical sound), places of articulation, and different phoneme distribution environments. The data show detailed features on intelligibility of English fricatives between English and Cantonese and may lay the groundwork for further studies on the intelligibility of English fricatives between Chinese dialects and English. This study may serve as a reference for both educators and learners regarding potential problems with English pronunciation in Cantonese-speaking regions, and also provide some scientific data and theoretical values for Artificial Intelligence technologies, especially in the fields of speech production and speech recognition.