An acoustic analysis of lexical tones in Cantonese by Chinese youths in Seremban, Malaysia / Chan Huey Jien

As one of the major Chinese dialects, Cantonese is commonly used among the Malaysian Chinese community. Besides native speakers, there are also non-native Cantonese speakers. However, it is difficult for non-native speakers to master Cantonese because there is no formal education of Cantonese in Malaysia. One of the difficult parts in learning Cantonese is lexical tones. It was because Cantonese is commonly said to have nine lexical tones, which is considerably more complicated than Mandarin. In view of this, this study provides an acoustic analysis of lexical tones in Cantonese produced by Chinese youths in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. This study investigates the acoustic characteristics of monosyllabic words by analyzing the pitch features and length features of lexical tones. Six female speakers participated in this study, three of them are native Cantonese speakers, while the other three are non-native Cantonese speakers. Data analysis was conducted by using Praat. In terms of length features, the results of vowel duration in both groups are same. In terms of pitch features, the pitch value of T3 (Yinshang), T5 (Yinqu) and T9 (Yangru) produced by non-native speakers are different from the native speakers. For the pitch contour, besides T2 (Yangping), all other lexical tones produced by non-native speakers are characterized by a flat contour. In addition, the pitch value and vowel duration of T2 (Yangping) and T6 (Yangqu) in both groups are quite close and there is a trend of combination. This study may provide reference for future research in acoustic phonetics.