The Realization and Perception of Narrow Focus in English Sentences by Cantonese EFL learners

Previous studies have investigated the acquisition of narrow focus by Chinese speakers of English from various dialect regions. While few research paid attention to the Cantonese EFL (i.e., English as a Foreign Language) learners. Given the similarities and differences in intonation patterns between Cantonese and English, the present study aims to provide an empirical research to address the acquisition of narrow focus by Cantonese EFL learners from the perspective of production and perception. Production results showed that: all Cantonese EFL learners applied the falling boundary tone to realize the imperative intonation. But a dominant number of learners produced the target sentences with the nucleus assigned at words other than the narrow focus words designed. And among the sentences whose nucleus fell on the narrow focus words, the nuclear accent was mainly marked by H*, followed by L+H*. In terms of perception, Cantonese EFL learners could identify the accented words accurately. Specifically, the perception accuracy of nuclear accent was about 94% (i.e., 94% for H* pitch accent, and 93.75% for L+H*), and there was no significant differences in the perception accuracy of different types of pitch accents. Comparison of results in the two experiments did not find strong correlations between the production and perception. Namely, although Cantonese EFL learners could perceive L+H* pitch accent, they did not employ L+H* dominantly in speech production.