{"title":"The acquisition of boundary tones in spontaneous speech by Korean\n learners of English*","authors":"Wook Kyung Choe","doi":"10.13064/KSSS.2020.12.4.047","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The current study was designed to investigate which type of phrase boundary tones high-intermediate Korean learners of English used in their spontaneous speech. These boundary tones were compared to those used in native speakers’ spontaneous speech to examine whether the learners successfully acquired the use of boundary tones. To achieve this purpose, 10 Korean learners of English and four native speakers of English participated in the current study. The participants were asked to summarize the stories of short videos, and the tonal and the phrasing patterns of the obtained spontaneous speech were analyzed using Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) transcription conventions. The results indicated that both the native speakers and the Korean learners frequently marked their intonational phrase boundaries with high boundary tones. However, regarding the prosodic phrase positions within a sentence, Korean learners frequently used steep rising tones (i.e., H-H%) while native speakers used gradual rising tones (i.e., L-H%) for sentence-final intonational phrases. Overall, the findings suggested that high-intermediate Korean learners understood the forward-looking function of the high boundary tones and that they were able to make use of these tones to mark intonational phrases in their spontaneous speech.","PeriodicalId":255285,"journal":{"name":"Phonetics and Speech Sciences","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Phonetics and Speech Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2020.12.4.047","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The current study was designed to investigate which type of phrase boundary tones high-intermediate Korean learners of English used in their spontaneous speech. These boundary tones were compared to those used in native speakers’ spontaneous speech to examine whether the learners successfully acquired the use of boundary tones. To achieve this purpose, 10 Korean learners of English and four native speakers of English participated in the current study. The participants were asked to summarize the stories of short videos, and the tonal and the phrasing patterns of the obtained spontaneous speech were analyzed using Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) transcription conventions. The results indicated that both the native speakers and the Korean learners frequently marked their intonational phrase boundaries with high boundary tones. However, regarding the prosodic phrase positions within a sentence, Korean learners frequently used steep rising tones (i.e., H-H%) while native speakers used gradual rising tones (i.e., L-H%) for sentence-final intonational phrases. Overall, the findings suggested that high-intermediate Korean learners understood the forward-looking function of the high boundary tones and that they were able to make use of these tones to mark intonational phrases in their spontaneous speech.
本研究旨在探讨韩国英语中高级学习者在自发言语中使用哪一种短语边界音。将这些边界音与母语人士的自发语音进行比较,以检验学习者是否成功地掌握了边界音的使用。为了达到这一目的,10名韩国英语学习者和4名英语母语者参与了本次研究。参与者被要求总结短视频的故事,并使用语调和中断指数(Tone and Break Indices, ToBI)转录惯例分析获得的自发语音的语调和措辞模式。结果表明,母语者和韩语学习者都经常用高边界音标记语调短语边界。然而,对于句子中的韵律短语位置,韩国学习者经常使用陡峭的上升音调(即H-H%),而母语人士则使用渐进的上升音调(即L-H%)作为句末语调短语。总体而言,研究结果表明,高中级韩语学习者理解高边界音调的前瞻性功能,并且能够在他们的自发讲话中使用这些音调来标记语调短语。