A Comparative Analysis of the Intonational Properties of Weifang Dialect and Harbin Dialect Using the M_ToBI labelling System

This paper compares the Weifang dialect and Harbin dialect in the Mandarin ToBI system. Through the ToBI images, the similarities and differences between the intonational properties of the two dialect systems have been revealed. This paper mainly has the following findings. Firstly, the tone becomes higher when the speaker intends to indicate the narrow focus on this part of the sentence or words. Secondly, in Weifang dialect, the topic of the topic utterance is not stressed, while the part after the topic has a higher tone. Thirdly, Harbin dialict is likely to make a higher tone at the beginning of the utterance. Finally, a pause exists between the topic and the after part in the topic utterance in both two dialects. These results can be applied to the second language teaching of Mandarin, so that learners will be more accessible to the intonational properties of the language and will enjoy the learning experience.