ABSTRACT
Chinese is a tonal language. Its tone is phonemic and is associated with a syllable to convey meaning. In English, however, tone is mainly prosodic. In order to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences in the characteristics of English and Chinese intonation, how the prosodic transfer happens and affects L2 learners production and perception of English intonation patterns, as well as how tone properties in Chinese Mandarin are being transferred to English and interfere with English intonation patterns, a questionnaire is designed and statement and questions in English read by native Chinese speakers are recorded. These recordings were then analyzed in terms of stress and pitch accent under the guidance of Autosegmental Metrical (AM) theory. The results show that as a result of negative transfer, Chinese speakers are most likely to pronounce English questions in a rising tone. That is, Chinese speakers rely heavily on their in-depth analysis of the tones of the Chinese language to produce prosody in English, in particular in interrogation sentences.
