Abstract
This paper conducts a comparative study between L1 and L2 (L1 Bengali) English discourse level speech planning to investigate differences between L1 and L2 English speaker groups in the organization of discourse-level speech planning. For this purpose, English speech of 10 L1 English and 40 L1 Bengali speakers of the same discourse are analyzed in terms of using prosodic and acoustic cues by applying hierarchical discourse prosody framework. From this analysis, between-group differences in discourse level speech planning are found through the speech rate, locations of discourse boundary breaks as well as size and scope of speech planning and chunking units. Result of analysis shows that the speech rate of L1 English speakers is higher than that of L2 English speakers, L2 English speakers contain more break boundary than that of the L1 English speakers at every discourse level in the organization, which exhibit the fact that L2 English speakers use more intermediate chunking units and larger scale planning units than that of L1 English speakers. Between-group differences are also found through the analysis of phrase component at prosodic phrase level and accent component at the prosodic word level. These findings can be attributed to L2 English speakers’ improper phrasing, improper word level prominence and the ambiguous difference between content words and function words. The study concludes that the deficiencies in English strategy for L1 Bengali speakers’ discourse-level speech planning compared to L1 English speakers are due to the influence of L1 (Bengali) prosody at the L2 discourse level.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: detailed information of L1 American English speakers
ID | Gender | Age (years) | Educational level |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Male | 23 | Undergraduate |
2 | Male | 25 | Postgraduate |
3 | Male | 21 | Undergraduate |
4 | Male | 22 | Undergraduate |
5 | Male | 27 | Postgraduate |
6 | Female | 28 | Postgraduate |
7 | Female | 24 | Postgraduate |
8 | Female | 26 | Postgraduate |
9 | Female | 22 | Undergraduate |
10 | Female | 23 | Undergraduate |
Appendix 2: detailed information of L1 Bengali speakers
ID | Gender | Age (years) | Educational level | Discipline | Number of years studied English |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7 | Male | 25 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 10 |
18 | Male | 27 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 12 |
32 | Male | 22 | Undergraduate | Science | 10 |
39 | Female | 20 | Undergraduate | Engineering | 11 |
40 | Female | 23 | Undergraduate | Arts | 14 |
9 | Male | 22 | Undergraduate | Science | 12 |
31 | Male | 31 | PhD | Education | 21 |
10 | Male | 24 | Undergraduate | Engineering | 16 |
25 | Male | 34 | PhD | Engineering | 25 |
38 | Female | 32 | PhD | Engineering | 24 |
8 | Female | 27 | Postgraduate | Humanity | 19 |
14 | Male | 26 | Postgraduate | Arts | 20 |
1 | Male | 35 | PhD | Engineering | 27 |
26 | Male | 28 | Postgraduate | Science | 21 |
3 | Female | 29 | Postgraduate | Social Science | 23 |
13 | Female | 26 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 16 |
19 | Female | 32 | PhD | Engineering | 23 |
20 | Male | 35 | PhD | Engineering | 25 |
21 | Female | 28 | Postgraduate | Science | 20 |
4 | Male | 25 | Undergraduate | Engineering | 17 |
2 | Male | 27 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 18 |
23 | Male | 21 | Undergraduate | Law | 11 |
28 | Female | 32 | PhD | Engineering | 22 |
36 | Male | 25 | Undergraduate | Engineering | 16 |
35 | Female | 20 | Undergraduate | Humanity | 12 |
37 | Female | 25 | Postgraduate | Arts | 17 |
6 | Male | 29 | PhD | Science | 23 |
24 | Female | 31 | Undergraduate | Science | 26 |
34 | Female | 27 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 21 |
16 | Male | 33 | PhD | Engineering | 27 |
30 | Female | 35 | PhD | Social Science | 28 |
33 | Female | 24 | Undergraduate | Social Science | 17 |
12 | Male | 29 | PhD | Engineering | 22 |
11 | Female | 35 | PhD | Social Science | 23 |
17 | Female | 30 | Postgraduate | Science | 20 |
15 | Female | 29 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 21 |
29 | Female | 22 | Undergraduate | Engineering | 15 |
22 | Male | 26 | Postgraduate | Engineering | 19 |
27 | Female | 21 | Undergraduate | Science | 14 |
5 | Male | 35 | Postgraduate | Social Science | 29 |
Appendix 3: AESOP’s specified recording setup
The speech of L1 and L2 (L1 Bengali) English speakers was recorded by using AESOP’s recording tool kit with AESOP’s specified recording platform. The detailed description of AESOP’s specified recording setup is given below.
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Recording environment
Recording can be conducted in quiet room, such as a seminar room, lab, or a class room.
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Sound card
Sennheiser PC155 comes equipped with a built-in sound card. No driver installation is required.
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Recording machine
Either a desktop PC or a laptop may be used. Connect the headset to the PC or Laptop. The CUHK-SIAT recording tool is compatible with the following operating systems: Windows XP Service Pack 2.
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Recording tool kit
The CUHK-SIAT recording tool was developed by Chinese University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology. It was subsequently modified to fit the requirements of this project.
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Audio file format
Source: microphone
Sampling rate: 16 kHz
Bit rate: 16-bit
Channel: mono
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Saha, S.N., Mandal, S.K.D. Discourse prosody planning in native (L1) and nonnative (L2) (L1-Bengali) English: a comparative study. Int J Speech Technol 20, 305–326 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-017-9409-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-017-9409-1