The interplay of proficiency and study abroad experience on the prosody of L2 speech acts

Abstract

Adopting Brazil’s (1997) prosodic framework, this study examined whether proficiency and study abroad experience impact second language (L2) English learners’ spoken production of speech acts. Twenty-four native English speakers and 64 Japanese learners of L2 English participated in the study. The L2 learner group was divided into three sub-groups: (1) high proficiency learners with study abroad (SA) experience (2) low proficiency learners with no SA experience, and (3) high proficiency learners without SA experience. Participants completed an oral discourse completion task that assessed their ability to produce two speech acts (requests and opinions) in high- and low-imposition situations. Prosodic features including intonation, pitch range, and sentence prominence were analyzed via PRAAT. The findings revealed a complex interplay between proficiency and SA experience on pragma-prosodic production. Implications suggest that SA may have the added benefit of providing the backdrop for authentic contextual functions of prosody in high- and low- imposition situations.

Prosodic Patterns of Refusals: Differences Between English Native, Non-native, and Bilingual Speakers

“…In Kang et al's (2021b) study on imposition and speech acts, the use of level tone was used more by NSs and high proficiency learners with study abroad experience. This stands in contrast to low level learners in their study who tended to use more rising tones in high imposition speech acts (requests and opinions) which can be considered inappropriate for the situation (Kang et al, 2021b). Therefore, in high-imposition refusals, it appears that BLs were relying more strategically on level tones, similar to NSs and other high proficiency learners reported in Kang et al (2021b).…”

“…Prosody plays a crucial role in both creating and disambiguating meaning (Culpeper, 2011). While much prosodic research has been concerned with differences in how the prosody of NSs and NNSs influences accentedness, comprehensibility, or intelligibility, recent research has been focusing on how prosodic differences also convey pragmatic meaning (Kang & Kermad, 2019;Kang, Kermad, & Taguchi, 2021b;Kermad, 2021). One way this occurs is through intonation.…”

“…The appropriateness of speech acts relies in part on target-like prosody in order to get the speaker's intention across (Kang & Kermad, 2019;Kang et al, 2021b;Kermad, 2021). Speech acts can span declarations, descriptions, promises, refusals, suggestions, and apologies, among others (Cutting & Fordyce, 2021).…”

A Systematic Literature Review on Comparative Study of Request for the Past Ten Years (2012-2022)

“…However, intra-language study is the least researched topic and only takes up 3.2%. The type that is studied most among three types of comparative study of request is interlanguage (Kang et al, 2021;Siddiqa & Whyte, 2021), while intra-language type (Schoppa, 2022) is studied least.…”

Prosody of Preferred and Dispreferred Speech Acts: L2 Spanish Learners’ Intonation and Fluency in Acceptances and Refusals

“…Correspondingly, L2 learners' use of prosody has become an important area of investigation when conceptualizing their pragmatic competence. Empirical results from L2 English studies have revealed that learners use prosodic features (intonation and fluency) in a certain way when producing speech acts and that the use often indicates their level of pragmatic competence and development (Kang et al, 2021;Kostromitina, in press;Li, 2014;Taguchi, 2012;Taguchi et al, 2021).…”