Prosodic Turn-yielding Cues in English Spontaneous Speech by Chinese EFL Learners

Prosodic Turn-yielding Cues in English Spontaneous Speech by Chinese EFL Learners

This study investigates the prosodic turn-yielding cues, preceding two different turn transitions ̶ turn smooth change (S) and turn holding (H), employed by Chinese EFL learners. Prosodic cues, including F0 slope, mean pitch, mean intensity, IPU duration and speaking rate preceding S and preceding H were acoustically analyzed. The materials were 15 groups of dyadic conversations randomly chosen from SECCL (Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners). The subjects included 17 females and 13 males. The findings indicate that Chinese EFL learners exhibit quite similar tendency to native speakers in turn-yielding prosodic cues, but with certain deviations. Chinese EFL learners show significant differences in F0 slope, IPU duration and speaking rate. The subjects tend to end a turn with a rising or falling tone instead of plateau. The IPU duration is longer preceding S than preceding H. Speaking rate is found to be increased at turn-finals than turn-medials. Gender difference has also been addressed in this study. Findings show that females do better in prosodic strategies in interaction. Suggestions have also been given based on our findings to EFL teaching and learning.

This study investigates the prosodic turn-yielding cues, preceding two different turn transitions ̶ turn smooth change (S) and turn holding (H), employed by Chinese EFL learners. Prosodic cues, including F0 slope, mean pitch, mean intensity, IPU duration and speaking rate preceding S and preceding H were acoustically analyzed. The materials were 15 groups of dyadic conversations randomly chosen from SECCL (Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners). The subjects included 17 females and 13 males. The findings indicate that Chinese EFL learners exhibit quite similar tendency to native speakers in turn-yielding prosodic cues, but with certain deviations. Chinese EFL learners show significant differences in F0 slope, IPU duration and speaking rate. The subjects tend to end a turn with a rising or falling tone instead of plateau. The IPU duration is longer preceding S than preceding H. Speaking rate is found to be increased at turn-finals than turn-medials. Gender difference has also been addressed in this study. Findings show that females do better in prosodic strategies in interaction. Suggestions have also been given based on our findings to EFL teaching and learning.