Learning prosody and fluency characteristics of second language speech: The effect of experience on child learners' acquisition of five suprasegmentals

Trofimovich, Pavel; Baker, Wendy

doi:10.1017/s0142716407070130

Cited by 68 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The result has shown that intonation patterns of beginning-level L2 English produced by Vietnamese speakers are systematically different from those of native English speakers, which can be transferred from their native tone language. Nevertheless, the advanced speakers' ability to produce native-like intonation patterns indicates the effect of language learning/experience on on F0 pattern acquisition, lending further support for the L2 prosody acquisition in previous studies (Nguyễn and Ingram, 2005;Trofimovich and Baker, 2007;Nguyễn et al, 2008). The findings of this study have an original and significant contribution to the literature because it investigated into the prosodic transfer of intonation patterns between two typologically distinct languages: English, a stress accent language and Vietnamese, a contrastive contour tone language.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

The acquisition of question intonation by Vietnamese learners of English

Nguyễn¹,

Đào

2018

Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ.

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This paper examines the intonation of English statements and questions produced by Vietnamese speakers at two differing levels of proficiency. The goal of the study is threefold: (1) analysing the final tunes and the prosodic structure observed in informationseeking questions, namely Yes-No question, Or-question, Tag-question and Wh-question, (2) evaluating which characteristics of the L2 English intonation can be clearly derived from the observation of the data, and (3) whether the L2 English intonation patterns are transferred from Vietnamese. A data set of 25 sentences that included 5 statements and 20 information-seeking questions were constructed. Ten native Australian English speakers as a control group and 20 Southern Vietnamese speakers of English (10 beginners and 10 advanced speakers) were recorded. The final tunes (the direction of the final F0 contours) of the sentences were analysed. The result showed that while the advanced speakers of English mostly produced intonation patterns that are typically used by native English speakers, beginning speakers of English used a variety of tunes, several of which are deviate from the native-like standard and clearly transferred from the tone contours in Vietnamese. The findings of this study have an original and significant contribution to the literature because it investigated into the prosodic transfer of intonation patterns between two typologically distinct languages: English, a stress accent language and Vietnamese, a contrastive contour tone language and has implications for intonation teaching.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

The acquisition of question intonation by Vietnamese learners of English

Nguyễn¹,

Đào

2018

Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ.

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“…Most studies report that when learners' proficiency in a language increases, their speech rate increases, their silent pause rate decreases, and the duration of their silent pauses decreases (Cucchiarini, Van Doremalen,& Strik, 2010;Trofimovich & Baker, 2007).…”

Section: International Journal Of English Linguisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Assessment of Speaking Skills at the Tertiary Level

Ounis¹

2017

IJEL

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Since "English has become the lingua franca for academic interaction of learners and academics" (Koo, 2009, p. 77), the development of the EFL learners' oral performance proficiency constitutes the central interest of current English language teaching methodologists and practitioners. The importance of speaking as a productive skill has been echoed in the literature. Indeed, it is viewed as a crucial "part of the curriculum in language teaching … and …an important object of assessment as well" (Luoma, 2004, p. 1). Thus, the prime aim of this study is to explore the prevailing conceptions and actual practices of the assessment of EFL learners' speaking skills at the tertiary level. The respondents of the current research were 20 instructors who taught at the Higher Institute of languages in Gabes and at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Sfax, Tunisia. To collect the necessary data, a questionnaire survey was utilized. Then, the obtained data were analyzed using SPSS package. The findings revealed that the teachers' conceptions of assessment are directed towards the development of the learners' speaking skills. Despite the existence of a number of hardships, the teachers' classroom teaching practices revealed a compete reliance on authentic, ongoing, organized and thoughtful oral language assessment procedures which were meant to sustain and boost the learners' oral skill achievements.

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“…Many studies have investigated the acoustic fluency characteristics of nonnative speakers. The literature ranges from child second language (L2) learners (Trofimovich & Baker, 2007) to very advanced L2 speakers (Riazantseva, 2001). Nonnative speech is reported to contain more disfluencies than native speech (e.g., Cucchiarini, Strik, & Boves, 2000) and nonnative speakers are seen to become more fluent as their proficiency in the nonnative language advances (e.g., Freed, 2000;Towell, Hawkins, & Bazergui, 1996).…”

Section: Native and Nonnative Fluencymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Perception of Fluency in Native and Nonnative Speech

et al. 2014

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Where native speakers supposedly are fluent by default, nonnative speakers often have to strive hard to achieve a nativelike fluency level. However, disfluencies (such as pauses, fillers, repairs, etc.) occur in both native and nonnative speech and it is as yet unclear how fluency raters weigh the fluency characteristics of native and nonnative speech. Two rating experiments compared the way raters assess the fluency of native and nonnative speech. The fluency characteristics were controlled by using phonetic manipulations in pause (Experiment 1) and speed characteristics (Experiment 2). The results show that the ratings of manipulated native and nonnative speech were affected in a similar fashion. This suggests that there is no difference in the way listeners weigh the fluency characteristics of native and nonnative speakers.

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Learning prosody and fluency characteristics of second language speech: The effect of experience on child learners' acquisition of five suprasegmentals

Cited by 68 publications

References 64 publications

The acquisition of question intonation by Vietnamese learners of English

The acquisition of question intonation by Vietnamese learners of English

The Assessment of Speaking Skills at the Tertiary Level

The Perception of Fluency in Native and Nonnative Speech

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