English intonation in storytelling
A comparison of the recognition and production of nuclear tones by British and Hong Kong English speakers
This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English language intonation
in reading by speakers of British English and second language learners of English in Hong Kong. We demonstrate a relatively high
correlation between the scores for the two studies when data are separated by utterance type (statement, echo, WH-question, etc.).
Our finding that this cohort of English learners performs better at production of nuclear tones than in the corresponding
recognition study when both are judged by a template for British English adds support to the claim that the perception-production
link, a theory that production is contingent on perception, is not borne out by the empirical study of learners of World
Englishes. Data collected for the British English speakers give insight into a changing intonational phonology, while Hong Kong
data indicate differences in intonational categories, a different distribution of tones, and possibly tonal innovation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Method for Study 1: Recognition of tonal suitability
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Materials
- 2.3Procedure
- 3.Results for tonal recognition study
- 4.Method for production study
- 5.Results for the production study
- 5.1Choice of tune
- 5.2Nucleus position
- 6How do the studies relate to one another (hypotheses 2a and 2b)?
- 6.1Correlation by speaker
- 6.2Correlation by sentence type
- 6.3Global scores
- 7.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References