Your browser does not support the PubReader view.
Go to this page to see a list of supporting browsers.
The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 21, No. 0, pp.818-836
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2021
Received 18 Jul 2021 Revised 20 Sep 2021 Accepted 25 Sep 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.21..202109.818

Differential Contribution of English Suprasegmentals to L2 Foreign-Accentedness and Speech Comprehensibility: Implications for Teaching EFL Pronunciation, Speaking, and Listening

In Young Yang
Assistant Professor, Dept. of English Education, Catholic Kwandong University, Tel: 033) 649-7762 inyoung@cku.ac.kr


© 2021 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study investigated how English suprasegmentals contribute to two aspects of pronunciation proficiency—comprehensibility and foreign-accentedness. Further, it discussed their implications for teaching English as a foreign language. The read speech of 35 volunteers, who were second language (L2) English speakers in Korea, was analyzed in terms of the following seven variables concerning English suprasegmentals: the number of pauses, total duration of pauses, articulation rate, mean length of run, pitch range, prominence frequency, and sentence stress appropriacy. The results of a multiple regression analysis showed that the number of pauses, the sentence stress appropriacy, and the articulation rate were significant predictors of L2 speech comprehensibility. Speech rate factors and prominence frequency were the strongest predictors of foreign-accentedness. In addition, these results suggest that better understanding in communicative contexts requires teaching learners about the placement of sentence stress without overemphasizing the mere rhythmic pattern of spoken English. The discussion explains how discourse-level pronunciation practice and information structures can be integrated into L2 speaking and listening to improve student benefits.

Keywords:

L2 pronunciation, foreign-accentedness, comprehensibility, English prosody, sentence stress

Acknowledgments

This study reports a part of the author’s unpublished doctoral dissertation

References

  • Baker, R. E. 2010. The Acquisition of English Focus Marking by Non-native Speakers. Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, IL, USA.
  • Baumann, S. 2006. The Intonation of Givenness: Evidence from German. Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer. [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110921205]
  • Birch, S. and C. Clifton. 1995. Focus, accent, and argument structure: Effects on language comprehension. Language and Speech 38(4), 365–391. [https://doi.org/10.1177/002383099503800403]
  • Bock, J. K. and J. R. Mazzella. 1983. Intonational marking of given and new information: Some consequences for comprehension. Memory and Cognition 11(1), 64–76. [https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197663]
  • Bolinger, D. L. 1958. A theory of pitch accent in English. Word 14(2–3), 109–149. [https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1958.11659660]
  • Bolinger, D. L. 1972. Accent is predictable (if you're a mind-reader). Language 48(3), 633–644. [https://doi.org/10.2307/412039]
  • Brazil, D. 1997. The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Bresnan, J. W. 1971. Sentence stress and syntactic transformations. Language 47(2), 257–281. [https://doi.org/10.2307/412081]
  • Celce-Murcia, M., D. M. Brinton and J. M. Goodwin. 1996. Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Chomsky, N. and M. Halle. 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.
  • Clark, H. H. and S. E. Haviland. 1977. Comprehension and the given-new contract. In R. Freedle, ed., Discourse Production and Comprehension, 1–40. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
  • Crowther, D., P. Trofimovich, K. Saito and T. Isaacs. 2018. Linguistic dimensions of L2 accentedness and comprehensibility vary across speaking tasks. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40(2), 443–457. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S027226311700016X]
  • Cutler, A. 1976. Beyond parsing and lexical look-up. In R. J. Wales and E.C. T. Walkers, eds., New Approaches to Language Mechanisms: A Collection of Psycholinguistic Studies, 133–149. Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub.
  • Cutler, A. 1984. Stress and accent in language production and understanding. In D. Gibbon and H. Ritcher eds., Intonation, Accent and Rhythm: Studies in Discourse Phonology 8, 76–90. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A. and J. A. Fodor. 1979. Semantic focus and sentence comprehension. Cognition 7(1), 49–59. [https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(79)90010-6]
  • Derwing, T. M. and M. J. Munro. 1997. Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 19(1), 1–16. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263197001010]
  • Derwing, T. M. and M. J. Munro. 2009. Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication. Language Teaching 42(4), 476-490. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S026144480800551X]
  • Derwing, T. M., M. J. Munro and G. Wiebe. 1998. Evidence in favor of a broad framework for pronunciation instruction. Language Learning 48(3), 393–410. [https://doi.org/10.1111/0023-8333.00047]
  • Flege, J. E., M. J. Munro and I. R. MacKay. 1995. Factors affecting strength of perceived foreign accent in a second language. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97(5), 3125–3134. [https://doi.org/10.1121/1.413041]
  • Fuchs, A. 1984. Deaccenting and default accent. In D. Gibbon and H. Ritcher, eds., Intonation, Accent and Rhythm: Studies in Discourse Phonology 8, 134–164. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  • Hahn, L. D. 2004. Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly 38(2), 201–223. [https://doi.org/10.2307/3588378]
  • Hahn, L. D. and W. B. Dickerson. 1999. Speech Craft: Discourse Pronunciation for Advanced Learners. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. [https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.8396]
  • Halliday, M. A. K. 1967. Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics 3(2), 199–244. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226700016613]
  • Halliday, M. A. K and W. S. Greaves. 2008. Intonation in the Grammar of English. London: Equinox Pub.
  • Isaacs, T and P. Trofimovich. 2012. Deconstructing comprehensibility. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 34(3), 475–505. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263112000150]
  • Jenkins, J. 2002. A sociolinguistically based, empirically researched pronunciation syllabus for English as an international language. Applied Linguistics 23(1), 83–103. [https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/23.1.83]
  • Jun, Y. 2013. Hangugeo Myeongsagu-ui Uimiron: Hanjeongseong/Teukjingseong, Chongchingseong, Boksuseong [A Semantics for Korean Noun Phrases: Definiteness/Specificity, Genericity, Plurality]. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.
  • Kang, O. 2010. Relative salience of suprasegmental features on judgments of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness. System 38(2), 301–315. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2010.01.005]
  • Kang, O., D. O. N. Rubin and L. Pickering. 2010. Suprasegmental measures of accentedness and judgments of language learner proficiency in oral English. The Modern Language Journal 94(4), 554–566. [https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2010.01091.x]
  • Kang, S.-M. 2017. Connected speech in listening and speaking. The Journal of Linguistic Science 80, 1-15. [https://doi.org/10.21296/jls.2017.03.80.1]
  • Kang, S., S. Guion-Anderson, S.-C. Rhee and H. Ahn. 2012. The effect of language immersion on the acquisition of second language suprasegmentals. Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics 28(1), 179–207. [https://doi.org/10.17154/kjal.2012.03.28.1.179]
  • Kreidler, C. W. 2004. The Pronunciation of English: A Course Book (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. [https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470759264]
  • Ladd, D. R. 1996. Intonational Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Laver, J. 1994. Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139166621]
  • Lee, S. 2013. Korean university students’ listening comprehension and learning effects of connected speech processes in English. Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics 29(3), 133-169. [https://doi.org/10.17154/kjal.2013.09.29.3.133]
  • MacWhinney, B. and E. Bates. 1978. Sentential devices for conveying givenness and newness: A cross-cultural developmental study. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 17(5), 539–558. [https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(78)90326-2]
  • Mo, Y. 2010. Prosody Production and Perception with Conversational Speech. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.
  • Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 1994. Evaluations of foreign accent in extemporaneous and read material. Language Testing 11(3), 253–266. [https://doi.org/10.1177/026553229401100302]
  • Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 1995a. Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning 45(1), 73–97. [https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1995.tb00963.x]
  • Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 1995b. Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech. Language and Speech 38(3), 289–306. [https://doi.org/10.1177/002383099503800305]
  • Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 1998. The effects of speaking rate on listener evaluations of native and foreign-accented speech. Language Learning 48(2), 159–182. [https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9922.00038]
  • Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 1999. Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning 49(Supp. 1), 285–310. [https://doi.org/10.1111/0023-8333.49.s1.8]
  • Munro, M. J. and T. M. Derwing. 2001. Modeling perceptions of the accentedness and comprehensibility of L2 speech the role of speaking rate. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23(4), 451–468. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263101004016]
  • O’Connell, D. C., S. Kowal and H. Hörmann. 1969. Semantic determinants of pauses. Psychological Research 33(1), 50–67. [https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00424616]
  • Saito, K., P. Trofimovich and T. Isaacs. 2016. Second language speech production: Investigating linguistic correlates of comprehensibility and accentedness for learners at different ability levels. Applied Psycholinguistics 37(2), 217–240. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716414000502]
  • Schmerling, S. F. 1976. Aspects of English Sentence Stress. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
  • Sohn, H. 1999. The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Terken, J. and S. G. Nooteboom. 1987. Opposite effects of accentuation and deaccentuation on verification latencies for given and new information. Language and Cognitive Processes 2(3–4), 145–163. [https://doi.org/10.1080/01690968708406928]
  • Trofimovich, P. and W. Baker. 2006. Learning second language suprasegmentals: Effect of L2 experience on prosody and fluency characteristics of L2 speech. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28(1), 1–30. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263106060013]
  • Trofimovich, P. and W. Baker. 2007. Learning prosody and fluency characteristics of second language speech: The effect of experience on child learners' acquisition of five suprasegmentals. Applied Psycholinguistics 28(2), 251–276. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716407070130]
  • Trofimovich, P. and T. Isaacs. 2012. Disentangling accent from comprehensibility. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15(4), 905–916. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728912000168]
  • Vanderplank, R. 1993. ‘Pacing’ and ‘spacing’ as predictors of difficulty in speaking and understanding English. ELT Journal 47(2), 117–125. [https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/47.2.117]
  • Wells, J. C. 2006. English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Yang, B. 2003. Peurateu-reul Iyonghan Eumseongbunseog-ui Iron-gwa Silje [Theory and Practice of Speech Analysis Using Praat]. Busan: Mansu Pub.