Dear Lian-Hee,

These resources may interest you:

SOME COMMON PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS FACING VIETNAM LEARNERS OF ENGLISH by Nguyen Tien Dung.

• Pronunciation for speakers of Chinese languages.
• What in the world do we know about word stress? A review of what it is and how to teach it by Martin Checklin.

http://www.doctorsspeakup.com/content/speakers-chinese-languages

http://bvu.edu.vn/web/ffl/cong-trinh-bai-bao-khoa-hoc/-/asset_publisher/KIhbjhbiPqXD/content/some-common-pronunciation-problems-facing-vietnam-learners-of-english-ths-nguyen-tien-dung-

http://www.tesol.org.au/files/files/267_martin_checklin.pdf

Thanks Stephen. I'll look into these. Just for clarification, I'm not looking to teach tone language speakers stress in English or any other languages. I am just trying to find out if in general, tone language speakers can or cannot perceive stress.

I'm no linguist, but am interested in languages, Lian-Hee. I have no scientific evidences to prove whether tone language speakers can or cannot perceive stress.

However, in learning a second and a third language, I noticed my mother tongue had always influenced my acquisition of the later languages. In working with many Asian language speakers in mental health over the years, I noticed the stress in the English language is a challenge to them, but I don't think they can't perceive stress and intonation in English. With good teaching, they can be better at it. This is my two cents.

Thanks Stephen. You're right that with training, anyone can find ways to get around various properties of languages. My original question was if stress was elusive to those whose first language is tonal, and I might have been careless in saying "cannot perceive". English is not the only language that uses stress, so my question really is broader than just English. Italian, Spanish, German among many other languages also uses a stress accent prosodic system, and one wonders if tonal speakers (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Nigerian, ...) also find stress elusive in these.

There are implications on what our cognitive systems might be like and how they work in looking at parametric differences across languages. Perhaps some day, these threads will come together to let us learn more about the human brain.

Best,

LH

Thanks for your clarification. I agree with your comments, Lian-Hee.

Just as speakers of tone languages find it difficult to learn certain properties of languages with stress, rhythm, and intonation like English, so do the latter learn those of the former (i.e., different tones).

I think neuroscience has provided some answers on how one acquires a second language after certain age (e.g., beyond age 11-13). We might have more and more answers about language acquisition based on the advancement of neuroscience. 

I totally agree with the observation that stress is elusive for tone speakers. I made a perception experiment that was published in a German book with German Learners, Baule speakers from Ivory Coast, and reported in my PhD thesis (1988). The latters fails to recognize the prominent syllable. Possibles explanations may be: prominent syllables in a sentence have different realizations (from L*H, to H*L) according to contexts and other constraints (HH are not permitted before or after). Super-High tones are not the only clues for prominence. German has a delayed L* or H*. Not always the last syllable is prominent as in French (traditional Nuclear Stress Rule). If tone is phonemic, then tone speakers assign an equal value to all tones, and therefore, do have a cognitive strategy that can be called overrecognition or overdifferentiation. I trained Baule students in German as a Foreign language to listen minimally by focussing on the prominent syllable. In production, no to use too many tonal combinations (imagine the multiple combinations and patterns !). In. Production, most of the patterns are strange to German speakers, for instance. The results was a significant improvement in German intonation.

Wow! Thanks Firmin! This is incredibly helpful and interesting!! -LH