The purpose of this study is to explore the intonational performance by native and nonnative male speakers in terms of the acoustic evidence. Three main variables were included for the investigation: structural complexity, question types, and formal instruction. Two non-native male speakers with English major as well as two non-native male speakers with majors other than English participated in this program. Additionally, two male native speakers were also invited for this study. Those chosen participants (i.e. four non-native speakers and two native speakers) were required to read the given text (See the Appendix I) without any prior instruction. Their performance was recorded and analyzed by the Pratt system.
Several findings were found in this paper. First of all, it was the length of the sentence rather than the structural complexity that led to the reading duration time differences between native and non-native speakers. Secondly, non-native male speakers, no matter English majors or not, produced the monotonous syllable pitches. Additionally, according to the final intonation results, non-native speakers produced the interrogative like a declarative. Apparently, they were unaware of the discoursal functions of intonation. Finally, male English majors di d not outperform in this study, which may indicate that teachers have to design activities to improve those two male English majors’ intonation performance. 本研究的目的旨在以聲韻學的角度探討英語為母語的男性與非英語為母語的男性在音調表現上的差異。有三大變數將包含在本研究中探討：句子結構的難易度、問題類型、以及接受正式教學訓練的時間量。本研究挑選台灣屏東縣某一技術學院兩位英語系男性大學生以及兩位非英語系的男性大學生參與實驗。作者依據他們在聽力以及口語訓練課上的表現挑選出。同時，有兩位英語為母語的男老師願意接受實驗。他們依據作者所提供的文章唸出所有句子。實驗前，作者並未多加以指導他們的音調表現。研究結果顯示，句子的長度而非結構的難易度影響參與者花在唸句子的時間。此外，不論是英語或非英語系的男性大學生，他們在疑問句或一般陳述句所表現的音調結果都是一樣。也就是說，他們沒有很明顯地高低起伏的音調表現。疑問句句尾也未有明顯的音調上揚現象出現。最後，從這次實驗的結果發現，英語系男學生事前所接受的聲音訓練課並未在此研究中表現優於非英語系的男學生。這有可能是教師在訓練上的注重點有關。因為該教師只著重學生的表達流利度而不會注重他們的發音正確度表現。
