中文節拍手勢之研究

Abstract

本文旨從語用和語音方面，來探討中文「敘述性」言談(narrative discourse)對話中，說話者自然產生的節拍手勢。在語用方面，主要是觀察說話者使用節拍手勢表達前後景(Grounding)和新/舊訊息(Information state)的關係。研究結果發現，說話者較常使用節拍手勢來傳達前景(foreground)的新訊息，以提示聽話者注意。此外，說話者在敘述的過程中，常使用節拍手勢來預示前後景訊息的轉換。在語音方面，主要探討說話者使用節拍手勢時，其所對應的語句之音調高低及說話能量強度的關係。研究發現，語句的音高和強度無法預測這類手勢的產生；但是，當傳達前景的新訊息時，這類手勢的出現常伴隨著較強的語氣。此外，研究結果也顯示，說話者使用節拍手勢通常是有規律性的。

This thesis investigates gestural beats in Chinese narrative discourse at both pragmatic and acoustic levels. The relationship among grounding, information state and beat gestures is examined at the pragmatic level, and at the acoustic level, the relationship among pitch, intensity, and gestural beats is analyzed. Moreover, whether there is a rhythmic pattern for beat gestures is further studied. The subjects were four undergraduates who were asked to view an animated color cartoon episode and then to immediately recount the events in it to a listener. The subjects were audio-video taped. They were not informed of the particular interest of the study. 291 beats were transcribed and analyzed. The audio data was analyzed on Praat and a Kay’s Model 4100. The continuous beats were further analyzed to investigate the rhythmic patterns and were annotated in Anvil, a video annotation tool. Gestural beats, narrative data, and the annotations were statistically analyzed and five phenomena for beat gestures were explored. First, gestural beats can appear in both foregrounded and backgrounded clauses. Second, the occurrence of beat gestures signals shifts between levels of the narrative structure. Third, speakers usually incline to utter new information in foregrounded clauses in Chinese narrative discourse with accompanying beats. Fourth, neither intensity nor pitch changes can predict and correlate with the occurrence of gestural beats in the relationship between beats and two acoustic factors. However, when grounding and the information state of the associated referents are considered, beats are produced for new information in foregrounded clauses with greater intensity. Finally, there is a rhythmic pattern in the production of continuous beats and the regularity of the patterns correlates with the clause boundary. A close relationship is revealed between speech and gestures in this thesis. The findings provide some linguistic details that may help explore the performance of gestural beats and speech in Chinese narrative discourse.