TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract I Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Literature Review 2 2.1 Vowels in SC and TM 2 2.2 Research on articulatory and acoustic relationship 2 Chapter 3 Method 4 3.1 Stimuli 4 3.2 Participants 5 3.3 Data collection 5 3.4 Data analysis 6 Chapter 4 Acoustical Results 8 4.1 An overlook to the monophthongs 8 4.2 Static and Dynamic results for the monophthongs 15 Chapter 5 Articulatory Results 28 5.1 Standard Chinese speakers 28 Chapter 6 Articulatory-Acoustical Relationship 50 Chapter 7 Discussion 52 Chapter 8 Conclusion 54 REFERENCES 56 List of Figures Figure 3-1: Positions of the sensors mounted on the tongue front, tongue middle and tongue back and the fixed reference sensors on the nasion and left and right mastoids. 6 Figure 4-1: Steady state formant values from all SC speakers’ tokens 10 Figure 4- 2: Steady state formant values from all TM speakers’ tokens 11 Figure 4-3: The vowel spaces of the speakers 12 Figure 4-4: Male formant trajectories 16 Figure 4-5: Female formant trajectories 16 Figure 4-6: F1 trajectories of [i] for male speakers 18 Figure 4-7: F2 trajectories of [i]for male speakers 18 Figure 4-8: F1 trajectories of [y] for male speakers 18 Figure 4-9: F2 trajectories of [y]for male speakers 18 Figure 4-10: F1 trajectories of [u] for male speakers 19 Figure 4-11: F2 trajectories of [u] for male speakers 19 Figure 4-12: F1 trajectories of [ɤ] for male speakers 20 Figure 4-13: F2 trajectories of [ɤ]for male speakers 20 Figure 4-14: F1 trajectories of [a] for male speakers 21 Figure 4-15: F2 trajectories of [a] for male speakers 21 Figure 4-16: F1 trajectories of [i] for female speakers 21 Figure 4-17: F2 trajectories of [a] for female speakers 21 Figure 4-18: F1 trajectories of [y] for female speakers 22 Figure 4-19: F2 trajectories of [y] for female speakers 22 Figure 4-20: F1 trajectories of [u] for female speakers 23 Figure 4-21: F2 trajectories of [u] for female speakers 23 Figure 4-22: F1 trajectories of [ɤ] for female speakers 24 Figure 4-23: F2 trajectories of [ɤ]for female speakers 24 Figure 4-24: F1 trajectories of [a] for female speakers 24 Figure 4-25: F2 trajectories of [a] for female speakers 24 Figure 5-1: Tongue contours and tongue positions for SC male speaker 01 (left: back, right: front) 30 Figure 5-2: Tongue contours and tongue positions for SC male speaker 02 (left: back, right: front) 32 Figure 5-3: Tongue contours and tongue positions for SC female speaker 01 (left: back, right: front) 35 Figure 5-4: Tongue contours and tongue positions for SC female speaker 02 (left: back, right: front) 37 Figure 5-5: Tongue contours and tongue positions for TM male speaker 01 (left: back, right: front). 40 Figure 5-6: Tongue contours and tongue positions for TM male speaker 02 (left: back, right: front) 42 Figure 5-7: Tongue contours and tongue positions for TM female speaker 01 (left: back, right: front) 44 Figure 5-8: Tongue contours and tongue positions for TM female speaker 02 (left: back, right: front) 46 List of Tables Table 3-1: The SURFACE vowel inventory of Taiwanese Mandarin 4 Table 3- 2: Test monosyllabic words used in the study 5 Table 4-1: SC speakers’ means and standard deviations for F1 and F2 in Hz 9 Table 4-2: TM speakers’ means and standard deviations for F1, F2 and F3 in Hz 11 Table 4-3: Results for F1 and F2 distinction in male speakers (where n.s=not significant and *=significant) 13 Table 4-4: Results for F1 and F2 distinction in female speakers by T Test (where n.s=not significant and *=significant) 15 Table 4-5: Comparison of static results and dynamic results (where n.s=not significant and *=significant (for dynamic results, * means more than 50% of the trajectory in the interval are significantly different )) 27 Table 5-1: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for SC male speaker 01 31 Table 5-2: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for SC male speaker 02 33 Table 5-3: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for SC female speaker 01 35 Table 5-4: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for SC female speaker 02 37 Table 5-5: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for TM male speaker 01 40 Table 5-6: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for TM male speaker 02 42 Table 5-7: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for TM female speaker 01 44 Table 5-8: Pairwise comparisons of five monophthongs [i], [y], [u], [ɤ] and [a] for TM female speaker 02 46 Table 5-9: The orders of vowel backness (back<front). M represents male speakers and F represents female speakers 49 Table 5- 10: The orders of vowel height (low<high). M represents male speakers and F represents female speakers. 49 Table 6-1: Correlation between formants and tongue position in SC 50 Table 6- 2: Correlation between formants and tongue position in TM 51