音節層級之英語音韻習得

The Acquisition of English Phonology at the Syllabic Level

The present study is a preliminary description of the acquisition of English phonology by school children in Taiwan, with a concentration on structures at the syllabic level. A group of 44 grade-five students took a syllable deletion task (SDT) that measured their perception and production of English syllables. The task comprised two parts of 48 disyllabic spoken words which required the deletion of the initial or final syllable. Under each part were Categories A and B which contained items characteristic of first or second syllable stress respectively. Items in each category were further divided into ones with a clear syllable boundary and those without. The participants' oral responses to the SDT were transcribed and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Chi-square analyses of the non-parametric paradigm were adopted to compare the participants' frequencies of correct responses for test items in three conditions. The results revealed that the participants performed significantly differently on items involving a clear or an unclear syllable boundary. There was no significant difference in their processing of test items requesting S1 or S2 deletion or test items involving S1 or S2 as the stressed syllable. The outcomes of qualitative analyses suggested production commonality and variability in the participants' articulatory responses. Overall, they demonstrated a consistent tendency in the deviant forms they had generated, which included the error types of consonant cluster reduction, sound addition (vowel epenthesis and consonant (cluster) addition), vowel paragoge, sound substitution, and initial/terminal truncation. In addition, there were responses which were not rule-based or consisted of random CV arrays. In spite of these categories of errors, the majority of them demonstrated a basic understanding of English phonotactic rules that govern the internal structure of the syllable. The findings highlighted the syllable adjustment strategies or measures non-native speakers maneuver to cope with English lexical words.本研究針對台灣學童英語音韻習得的情況進行初步探討，研究的焦點擺在音節層級之結構。研究者對48名五年級學童施以音節刪除測試，藉此評估其英語音節的感知與發音能力。此一測試包含兩部份共48個測驗字，每一部份底下又區分成重音節為第一或第二音節的A、B兩類詞彙，每一類並進一步劃分為音節邊際清晰或不清晰的兩種詞彙。針對參與者的口頭回應，研究人員先予以記音，然後進行量化、質化分析。透過卡方考驗，研究人員得以比較在三種情況下，參與者回應正確的頻率為何。結果顯示，對於音節邊際清晰和不清晰的詞彙，參與者的表現顯著不同，至於重音位置在第一或第二音節的詞彙，其表現則並無顯著差異。透過質化分析，研究人員發現了參與者在發音回應上的共通性和差異現象。整體而言，他們在偏離形式的發音上呈現出某些共通的傾向，包括輔音群刪減、增音、字尾元音增添、語音替換、及節首、節尾語音刪除等錯誤。此外，若干參與者也製造了違背音韻規則或隨機排列CV音串等類型的錯誤。儘管如此，大多數的參與者對於英語音節的內部結構和拼字組合律仍展現了基本的知識，值得重視。本研究的發現顯示，對於非英語母語人士而言，音節調整策略或方法乃是他們處理英語詞彙必須的利器。