LINGUIST List 20.2433
Wed Jul 08 2009
Diss: Phonetics: Ploquin: 'Phonological Issues in the Production of...'
Editor for this issue: Di Wdzenczny
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1. Marie
Ploquin,
Phonological Issues in the Production of Prosody by Francophone and Sinophone Learners of English as a Second Language
Message 1: Phonological Issues in the Production of Prosody by Francophone and Sinophone Learners of English as a Second Language
Date: 07-Jul-2009
From: Marie Ploquin <ploquin.marieuqam.ca>
Subject: Phonological Issues in the Production of Prosody by Francophone and Sinophone Learners of English as a Second Language
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Institution: Université du Québec à Montréal
Program: Ph.D. in Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2009
Author: Marie Ploquin
Dissertation Title: Phonological Issues in the Production of Prosody by Francophone and Sinophone Learners of English as a Second Language
Linguistic Field(s):
Phonetics
Subject Language(s): English (eng)
Dissertation Director:
Henrietta Cedergren
Dissertation Abstract:
Accented non-native speech can lead to a lack of comprehension or to theperception of various degrees of foreignness. Prosody, which is nowrecognized as an important element of accented speech, has been relativelyunexplored in second language studies. This contrasts with the growinginterest of research on first language prosody.
In this thesis, phonological research is evaluated for its significance toresearch in second language prosody. Two aspects of phonological theory areinvestigated: typology and phonological organization. This choice wasdriven by the belief that prosodic foreignness is due to one of twofactors: a difference of typological class of L1 and L2 and a transfer ofL1 prosodic features.
The review of research on phonological typology led to the conclusion that,at this stage, no prosodic classification model can be applied to L2acquisition. More specifically, the investigation shows that sometypologies, particularly Pike's stress-time and syllable-time theory,should be dismissed as they hinder progress in research in second languageacquisition of prosody.
The second aspect of phonological theory investigated in this thesis isphonological organization. The premise is that differences at theunderlying prosodic organization level rather than at the surface featurelevel are transferred from L1 to L2. The thorough analyses of NorthAmerican English, French and Standard Chinese yield importantorganizational differences between North American English and the other twolanguages. Some of these differences are tested with four experiments.
English prosody by native speakers of French is analyzed in rhythmicallysimple sentences and in rhythmically more complex sentences. The resultsshow that lexical stress is less of an issue than supra-lexical prosodicstress. Specifically, early and late AP (accentual phrase) rises are shownto be erroneously transferred from French to English prosody. However, thestudy also shows that, while this error is noticed by native speakers ofEnglish, it does not affect their perception of stress placement.
English prosody, as produced by native speakers of Chinese, is analyzed interms of tone transfer and peak alignment. The results provide strongevidence that speakers of Chinese use Chinese tones when producing Englishpitch accents; in particular, for the vast majority of subjects, tone 2(the rising tone) is implemented when producing English rising pitchaccents. The final experiment reveals that Chinese speakers tend to bestricter in the alignment of pitch accents with the corresponding stressedsyllables than North American English speakers.
The results of this thesis provide insights into L2 prosodic competenceprogression and native speakers' perception of L2 prosody. The findingshave implications in pedagogical content and format of pronunciation training.
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