泰籍華語學習者之語詞發音與語句清晰度

A Study on the Pronunciation of Words and Sentence Intelligibility of Thai Mandarin Learners

本研究以二十名在臺灣學習華語之泰籍學生和二十名華語母語者為對象，蒐集其在語詞、句子、短文層次的說話樣本，再由六十名華語母語者進行清晰度評分。十二項最小語音對比雙音節語詞採項目辨識法，句子和短文的清晰度評分採視覺類比結合直接大小估計法。結果顯示，泰籍華語學習者語詞清晰度最低的四項語音對比，依序為「舌尖前音與舌尖後音」、「送氣與否塞擦音」、「展圓唇元音」、「二聲與三聲」。逐步迴歸分析顯示「一聲與二聲」、「送氣與否塞擦音」和「展圓唇元音」對語詞清晰度總分達79.1%的預測力。學習者的語詞、句子和短文清晰度皆低於母語者，且三者之間呈現中度以上的正相關，顯示華語學習者的語詞發音與言語清晰度之間有一定的關聯性。

"This research aimed to investigate the pronunciation of words and sentence intelligibility of 20 Thai learners learning Mandarin in Taiwan, and 20 native Mandarin speakers. Speech samples produced at the levels of words, sentences, and a short essay were collected, and then evaluated by sixty Mandarin native speakers. The item identification method was used to evaluate word intelligibility that include 88 bisyllabic words with twelve minimal phonetic contrasts. The intelligibility scores of 10 sentences and a passage were determined by the combination of a visual analogue scale and a direct magnitude estimation method. The results showed that for Thai Mandarin leaners, the four phonetic contrasts with lowest intelligibility score are, in order, retroflex and nonretroflex, aspirated-unaspirated affricate, rounded-unrounded vowel, contrasts between tone two and tone three. The analysis of pronunciation errors showed that the round-lip vowel [y] was determined as [u]; the aspirated affricative was determined as a fricative; and the second and third tones are confused with each other. From the stepwise regression analysis, it was found that contrasts between tone one and tone two, aspirated-unaspirated affricates, and rounded-unrounded vowels have significant predictive power of 79.1% for the total score of word intelligibility. The intelligibility scores in words, sentences, and an essay for Thai Mandarin-learners are lower than that of native speakers, and there are positive correlations between the three levels, which shows that there are certain correlations between the pronunciation of words and speech intelligibility of Thai Mandarin-learners. Based on the results of the present study, i t is expected to have some implications for improving communication effectiveness for Thai Mandarin-learners, as well as providing suggestions for teaching Mandarin as a second language."