While the L2 perception of segmentals has been investigated, our knowledge of the L2 perception of intonation is limited. Moreover, it is unclear how context affects L1 transfer. This study investigates the perception of English sentence types by adult L1 Spanish speakers across tasks varying in contextual information. In Task 1, participants heard low-pass filtered utterances and identified them as statements, questions or exclamations. Task 2 was similar, but consisted of unaltered utterances. In Task 3, participants heard a scenario and three options (absolute question, declarative question, statement), and selected the best one. Accuracy and reaction times were measured. Learners had the most difficulty in Task 3, but were target-like in the others, confirming previous findings. Namely, L2 speakers perform better in tasks lacking contextual information versus contextualized ones. Thus, while learners maintain their auditory resolution to intonation cues in non-speech tasks, they cannot relate contours to appropriate L2 meanings.

Previous research has revealed that English speakers can differentiate between questions and statements after hearing an utterance's first pitch accent [1]. This suggests that initial F0 cues distinguishing questions from statements are present in the input. We examined this proposal by analyzing the first pitch accent in statements, absolute yes/no questions, and declarative questions. The production of these three sentence types was elicited from 10 Canadian English speakers who performed a sentence-repetition task. Results revealed that statements were produced with an initial H*, whereas both question types were almost exclusively produced with an initial L*+H. Statements were also produced with an earlier peak alignment, and a smaller F0 change. No differences were observed between absolute and declarative questions. The results are consistent with the stimuli analyzed in [1], and provide further evidence that initial pitch cues mark sentence type in Canadian English.

L2 prosody is particularly difficult to acquire, because it requires an understanding of intonation, syntax, and pragmatics. For example, to acquire English sentence types, speakers must learn that statements (Ss) and absolute yes/no questions (AQs) are syntactically and prosodically marked, whereas the difference between Ss and declarative questions (DQs) is purely prosodic. Moreover, DQs can only occur in restricted contexts, such as to express surprise. In this paper, we examine the L2 perception and comprehension of English sentence types, by speakers of three typologically distinct L1s (Spanish, Mandarin, Inuktitut), with the goal of investigating the role of crosslinguistic influence (CLI). Spanish uses only intonation (a higher initial pitch accent and final rising boundary tone) to distinguish Ss from AQs and DQs, whereas in Mandarin, questions (AQs and DQs) can be syntactically identical to statements or marked by the lexical particle –ma. Mandarin also has a prosodic distinction between broad focus and echo questions (which are similar to English AQs and DQs). In contrast, Inuktitut has a very restricted use of pitch, and primarily marks questions morphologically. Learners of each L1 and English controls performed three tasks that varied in the amount of contextual and linguistic information available. Our results revealed evidence of both positive and negative CLI.  Inuktitut and Mandarin speakers demonstrated some tendencies to focus more on syntax than intonation. Moreover, the Mandarin speakers were the most successful at acquiring the pragmatic distinction between AQs and DQs, which we argue is due to a similar contrast in Mandarin.

In an urbanized context, the need for a thorough understanding of the relationship between plants and human well-being becomes more and more important. It is documented that plants in the work environment bring a number of benefits, not only aesthetic but also psychological and physical benefits. The present study sought to determine if ornamental plants have positive effects on a wide range of factors such as productivity, mood states, creativity and stress on employees in an real organizational context. Questionnaire with 15 statements was used as method to examine the employees perceptions, applied before, after the installation of plants for each office and in swich phase. The study results were examined to determine if are statistically significant differences between the two groups at every stage. There were significant differences between the experimental and control group over the work environment. Research has found that for a better perceived working environment is a close link between creativity, reduced stress and job satisfaction. Results support the evidence of the psychological benefits of ornamental plants on employees and a general preference for plants. The direct impact of these benefits is on well-being and general performance of companies and the incorporation of ornamental plants in the workplace is deemed imperative for the future organizations to achieve the desired results.

This paper explores the role of cross-linguistic influence and task type in the realization of pitch accents and nuclear contours across English sentence types (statements, absolute questions and declarative questions) by sequential Inuktitut-English bilinguals. In Inuktitut, intonation is mainly a cue for phrasing; i.e., boundary tones are mapped to finality vs. continuity in turn-taking [1,2]. Questions are morphologically marked [3], and while a rising intonation may also be used, it is not always present. In contrast, English absolute questions are syntactically marked, whereas the difference between statements and declarative questions is purely prosodic. Participants performed two tasks: a delayed imitation task, and a contextualized production task. Results revealed that bilinguals differed from controls in the type and phonetic realization of the first pitch accent (but not the nuclear contour), displaying a reduced use of pitch. In the semispontaneous task, bilinguals differed from controls in the number of non-target-like realizations, particularly in contexts that prompted declarative questions. We argue that these findings demonstrate clear patterns of prosodic and morphosyntactic cross-linguistic influence, as well as the importance of incorporating contextual information as a variable [4].