Intelligibility, Tones and Young Beginner Learners of Mandarin Chinese

Robert Neal

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040310533
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Languages

Two decades ago, Mandarin Chinese seemed set to become a mainstream school subject in Anglophone settings. Yet current learning outcomes are generally disappointing. Is Chinese too difficult for learners at this level? Should it be left to the posh kids with pushy parents?

Set within the context of teaching and learning Chinese at an inner-city secondary school in the North of England, and adopting a case study research design, this book aims to develop research-informed insights into the nature of the pronunciation challenges facing beginner learners of Chinese.

While existing research has shown that producing native-like tones is difficult for Anglophone learners, the question of how important tones are for intelligibility has been largely ignored. Do heavily accented tones actually matter? Which specific areas of the learners' speech signal mislead their listeners? How aware are learners of their own pronunciation errors?

Teachers of Chinese may not be able to solve entrenched geopolitical tensions, but we can lay the foundations for a stronger engagement with China through excellent teaching. However, before authoritative pedagogical interventions can be made, far more understanding is required of not only how adolescent beginners learn Chinese in school settings, but also what can be realistically expected of them.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• 1 Introduction
• 2 From ‘nativeness’ to intelligibility
• 3 Challenges of ‘real world’ pronunciation research
• 4 Tones and intelligibility
• 5 Accentedness and comprehensibility
• 6 Awareness
• 7 Evidence-informed perspectives
• 8 Conclusion
• References
• Appendix A: Speaking tasks used to elicit L2 Chinese speech samples
• Appendix B: Classification of pronunciation errors at the monosyllabic level
• Appendix C: Coding framework used to analyse the perceived causes of accentedness
• Appendix D: Coding framework to analyse the perceived causes of lower levels of comprehensibility
• Appendix E: Coding framework used to analyse learners’ responses to their own intelligibility breakdowns
• Acknowledgements
• Index