An Acoustic Analysis of Cantonese Lexical Tones by Chinese Youths in Seremban, Malaysia

Abstract

Cantonese is widely spoken among the Malaysian Chinese community. Cantonese speakers are not only native speakers, but also non-native speakers. One of the difficult parts of Cantonese learning is lexical tones. In view of this, this study provides an acoustic analysis of Cantonese lexical tones produced by Chinese youths in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. This study investigates the acoustic characteristics of Cantonese lexical tones by analysing the length features and pitch features of monosyllabic words. 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, T2 and T6 are the shortest smooth tones, and T7 is the shortest checked tone. In terms of pitch features, T3 and T4 had greater changes compared to the previous study. All lexical tones produced by non-native speakers, with the exception of T2, are level tones. Moreover, in both groups, the vowel duration and pitch value of T2 are relatively the same as T6, and there is a trend of combination.