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Zimbabwean Students’ Perception of Chinese Sounds

Received: 13 February 2015    Accepted: 25 February 2015    Published: 7 April 2015
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Abstract

The present survey seeks to find out Zimbabwean student’s perception of Chinese sounds. The survey was carried out in 8 different schools in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. 23 Chinese words with different initials representing all the consonants in Chinese language were used for the survey. During the survey Chinese words were read to students who had never studied Chinese and the students were asked to write down what they hear using Latin letters. The results of the survey shows that Zimbabwean students in Harare have either English influenced perception or Shona influenced perception. However, there were some instances where random pattern was observed, this could be due to the uniqueness of the given Chinese sounds. We concluded that when teaching Chinese or any other foreign languages a pre-survey is required in order to establish the prevailing influential language. In Zimbabwe any local language at any given place can be more influential in terms of shaping students’ perception towards the target language.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 3, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18
Page(s) 102-109
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Sound Perception, Chinese Language, Zimbabwe, Second Language Learning

References
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[2] Brown C. (2000). The interrelation between speech perception and phonological acquisition from infant to adult. In Archibald, John (ed.) Second language acquisition and linguistic theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp.4-63.
[3] Gong J, Cooke M & Lecumberri MLG. (2011).Towards a quantitative model of Mandarin Chinese perception of English consonants. In Magdalena Wrembel, Malgorzata Kul and Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kolaczyk (eds.). Achievements and perspectives in SLA of speech: New Sounds. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
[4] Hall J L. (2003). Predicting Perceptual Success with Segments: A Test of Japanese Speakers of Russian. In Juana M. Liceras et al.(ed), Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference, pp190-198. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
[5] Fitzek, H. & Salber, W. (1996): Gestaltpsychologie. Geschichte und Praxis. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
[6] Fitzek, H. (2008): The Gestalt-Psychological Principles of the Concept of “Organizational Culture”. Gestalt Theory, 30 (4), 487-494.
[7] Kadenge M & Mabugu P. (2009). The Phonological Characteristics of Shona Loanwords from English. Nawa Journal of Language and Communication, 3(1). pp. 101-116.
[8] Käfer, D. (1982). Die Methodenprobleme und ihre Behandlung in Goethes Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Köln: Böhlau.
[9] Mayo LH, Florentine M, Buus S. (1997). Age of second-language acquisition and perception of speech in noise. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research, 40(3):686-93.
[10] Mushangwe H. (2012). Comparative Analysis of Chinese and Shona Tones. Journal of Comparative Literature and Culture, 2(2): 102-116.
[11] Mushangwe H. (2013). A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and Shona Vowels. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(11):77-86.
[12] Mushangwe H. (2014). Comparative analysis of the Chinese and Shona language’s consonant system. Journal of Advanced Linguistic Studies, 3(1-2):118-135.
[13] Ndlovu E. (2013). Mother tongue education in official minority languages of Zimbabwe: A language management critique. Unpublished Dissertation, University of the Free State: South Africa
[14] Pajak B, Sarah C, Creel, & Roger Levy. (2012). “Can native-language perceptual bias facilitate learning words in a new language?” In N. Miyake, D. Peebles, & R. P. Cooper (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2174–2179). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
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  • APA Style

    Guo Fuliang, Herbert Mushangwe. (2015). Zimbabwean Students’ Perception of Chinese Sounds. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 3(2), 102-109. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18

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    ACS Style

    Guo Fuliang; Herbert Mushangwe. Zimbabwean Students’ Perception of Chinese Sounds. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2015, 3(2), 102-109. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18

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    AMA Style

    Guo Fuliang, Herbert Mushangwe. Zimbabwean Students’ Perception of Chinese Sounds. Int J Lang Linguist. 2015;3(2):102-109. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18,
      author = {Guo Fuliang and Herbert Mushangwe},
      title = {Zimbabwean Students’ Perception of Chinese Sounds},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {3},
      number = {2},
      pages = {102-109},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20150302.18},
      abstract = {The present survey seeks to find out Zimbabwean student’s perception of Chinese sounds. The survey was carried out in 8 different schools in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. 23 Chinese words with different initials representing all the consonants in Chinese language were used for the survey. During the survey Chinese words were read to students who had never studied Chinese and the students were asked to write down what they hear using Latin letters. The results of the survey shows that Zimbabwean students in Harare have either English influenced perception or Shona influenced perception. However, there were some instances where random pattern was observed, this could be due to the uniqueness of the given Chinese sounds. We concluded that when teaching Chinese or any other foreign languages a pre-survey is required in order to establish the prevailing influential language. In Zimbabwe any local language at any given place can be more influential in terms of shaping students’ perception towards the target language.},
     year = {2015}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Zimbabwean Students’ Perception of Chinese Sounds
    AU  - Guo Fuliang
    AU  - Herbert Mushangwe
    Y1  - 2015/04/07
    PY  - 2015
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    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18
    T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    SP  - 102
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    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2330-0221
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150302.18
    AB  - The present survey seeks to find out Zimbabwean student’s perception of Chinese sounds. The survey was carried out in 8 different schools in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. 23 Chinese words with different initials representing all the consonants in Chinese language were used for the survey. During the survey Chinese words were read to students who had never studied Chinese and the students were asked to write down what they hear using Latin letters. The results of the survey shows that Zimbabwean students in Harare have either English influenced perception or Shona influenced perception. However, there were some instances where random pattern was observed, this could be due to the uniqueness of the given Chinese sounds. We concluded that when teaching Chinese or any other foreign languages a pre-survey is required in order to establish the prevailing influential language. In Zimbabwe any local language at any given place can be more influential in terms of shaping students’ perception towards the target language.
    VL  - 3
    IS  - 2
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • College of International Exchange & Education, Hebei University, Baoding, China

  • Hebei University, Department of Arts, Baoding, China

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