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Prosodic Adaptation in Language Learning

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Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 15))

Abstract

Prosodic phenomena such as intonation, rhythm and accentuation form the basis of understanding and acquiring language. They are used to support the exchange of information in discourse (e.g., to mark important information in an utterance), but also to regulate the relationship among the interlocutors, for example, to show affect or indicate group membership. In our paper, we summarize current experimental findings in the area of prosodic adaptation and draw a link to first language acquisition and second language learning. The findings of the cited studies show that prosodic adaptation can serve a number of communicative functions and that it can be seen both as the result of an automatic process supporting language processing, as well as a mechanism employed in social signaling. In the final part of the paper, we discuss the implications of the experimental results for methods designed to support prosody learning by L2 speakers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Chen (2004), however, examined the paralinguistic interpretation of the codes in a series of perceptual experiments and found varying tendencies in judgments of speakers of different languages.

  2. 2.

    Overall, languages are expected to exhibit the tendency to use grammatical categories directly derived from the paralinguistic meaning. Even in those languages where the linguistic implementation of intonation categories goes against the Biological Codes (as seems to be the case, e.g., for rising statements in Northern Irish or falling questions in Hungarian), speakers will still exploit the original phonetic effect to convey their attitudes and emotions (Gussenhoven 2002).

  3. 3.

    This English variety is commonly referred to as Black South African English.

  4. 4.

    Cf. Nilsenová and Nolting (2010) who report a stronger adaptation in pitch span and f0 at the utterance boundaries (the final f0 in the prime and initial f0 in the participant’s response) by 4- to 6-year-old children compared to adult speakers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Tilburg centre for Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Marie Nilsenová & Marc Swerts

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  1. Marie Nilsenová
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  2. Marc Swerts
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Correspondence to Marie Nilsenová .

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  1. , Fac. de Filosofía y Letras, Uni. Autónoma de Madrid, C/Francisco Tomás y Valiente 1, Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Jesús Romero-Trillo

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Nilsenová, M., Swerts, M. (2012). Prosodic Adaptation in Language Learning. In: Romero-Trillo, J. (eds) Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching. Educational Linguistics, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3883-6_6

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