University of Ni FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY

English department
A studies

Final project in Acoustics

To Rise or to Fall: That is the Question

Do Serbian high school EFL students use question intonation properly?

Advisor: Tatjana Paunovi, PhD

Student: Biljana Pri, 55

Ni. April, 2012

Introduction Over time pronunciation has had different positions in the English language teaching. Until mid-1960s it was considered an important component of language teaching, whereas in the next two decades pronunciation was generally avoided or ignored. As Chun says, Leather (1983) suggested two reasons for this: First, pedagogical concern had shifted from linguistic form to communicative function and focused on getting the message across rather than on getting the sounds correct. Second, theoretical linguistics had not provided helpful input for teaching applications. The traditional theoretical linguistic basis for the learning and teaching of pronunciation was a focus on the segmentals (vowels and consonants). However, since the early 1980s, there have been a number of appeals to reverse the emphasis from segmentals to prosodic patterns, i.e. suprasegmentals (stress, rhythm and intonation). In her book Chun states that The most recent approach to teaching pronunciation, is discourse intonation, i.e., how (...) intonation can function in discourse to mark such boundaries as between sentences, paragraphs, topics, conversational turns; to control interactive structure or organize conversational exchange, e.g., to constrain a hearer to reply or to discourage the hearer from replying; to continue an established topic or to signal a new topic; to indicate the expectations a speaker has about a listeners reply, to facilitate cooperation between and among speakers in structuring a discourse, to mark the shared mutual knowledge of a speaker and listener. Generally, our question as teachers should be: What are our pronunciation goals? As Chun says, We must decide whether we are striving for comfortably intelligible pronunciation, near-native accents, or socially acceptable pronunciation. Before deciding, we should bear in mind that todays students are more than ever exposed to English not only do they watch movies and listen to songs in English, but they also start learning it in the first grade of primary school or even earlier. Thus, it seems logical to strive as much as possible to the near native and socially acceptable pronunciation which can only be obtained through teaching not only segmentals but suprasegmentals (stress, rhythm and intonation) as well. Working in schools for almost 10 years, I have had the opportunity to use various books. Almost all of them had exercises which could be used to practise intonation with students, but in practice it rarely happened. Having limited time, teachers often choose to spend it practising grammar units and little time is spent on practising intonation. Another problem is big classes where teachers have difficulty managing all students and devoting attention to them all. I have noticed that my students generally have unclear knowledge on the importance of intonation. They are mostly left in the dark when it comes to discourse intonation which leads to occasional misunderstanding and poor oral presentations. One of the potential problems in teaching EFL to Serbian students can be the interrogative intonation and that is why I decided
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to do a research on that issue. Do Serbian high school EFL students use question intonation properly? In English there are various types of questions. In this research I focused on yes/no questions, wh- questions, tag questions and choice questions.

Previous research Verdugo (2005) investigated the use of prosodic cues for pragmatic functions with Spanish EFL learners, focusing particularly on expressing certainty in English tag-questions. Her participants used a falling pitch where inappropriate, and also used a narrower pitch range. Uncertainty was signalled by inappropriate, falling or mid-level tones, instead of a complex fall-rise. Paunovic and Savic (2008) investigated what phonetic cues EFL students use to signal discourse functions. Part of their research focused on tag-questions. The results showed that the majority of students used the intonation properly, which was quite expected for Paunovic and Savic, since this distinction is usually explicitly taught in English language classes. Olivia Marasco (2011) investigated whether native speakers of Spanish could imitate intonation patterns of English wh-questions. Her speakers had most difficulty with producing a higher tone in the utterance than that in the wh-word, while producing a final falling boundary tone was generally not a problem. Present study The research aimed to examine how intermediate Serbian EFL students manage interrogative intonation in a reading task. The investigation focused on pitch movement, key and tone. The population comprised 5 first-year students of Grammar school in Kruevac (3 female and 2 male, aged 15-16). Their overall language proficiency level was approximately B1 (CEF). The participants had 8 years of studying English in a formal educational setting. The research was designed to answer the following research questions: 1. Do Serbian EFL students of 1st year secondary school use interrogative intonation properly?

Methodology The data-gathering procedure consisted of a single reading task. The students were given a short dialogue to read consisting of one wh-question, one choice question, one yes/no question and two tag questions. Each participant had enough time to prepare for the recording (silent reading); when ready, they read the text aloud and were recorded. The digital

recording was stored directly into the Speech Filing System 4.8/Windows for subsequent analyses. Data analysis The acoustic analysis of the recordings was performed using Praat, version 5.2.03. Data analyses were based on F0 measurements obtained through the program for each individual participant. The analysis focused on the following intonation cues: pitch movement, pitch peak and pitch range. The analysis focused on the following intonation cues: pitch movement across the tone unit and pitch range (the span between maximum and minimum F0 measurement). Pitch range was measured for each question the speaker pronounced. Pitch movement was transcribed in the traditional 5-tone system (fall-rise \/, fall \ , rise / , rise-fall /\ , level tone ). Results and discussion Tag questions As for the tag questions, I included two questions and wanted to check whether the students would recognize which one only seeks confirmation from the hearer and in which one the questioner really doesnt know the answer to the question and to see if they would use the appropriate intonation. A rising contour is used when the questioner really does not know the answer to the question, whereas with a rising-falling pattern the questioner presumes to know the answer and is merely trying to confirm the presumption (Chun 2002, 218). In the tag question isnt it? the context clearly supported the interpretation that it was meant only to seek confirmation from the hearer, which means that the appropriate phonetic signal would be a falling tone. Its a LOVEly DAY, ISNT it? Two students used the complex rise-fall pattern, one used level-rise pattern, another used level-fall pattern and one student used level tone. Since they are at the beginning of their high school education, it cannot be concluded whether that student made a mistake because of the lack of familiarity with the right intonation signal or because of nervousness. Table 1 sums up the measurements for this item and Figure 1 shows F0 tracks of isnt it? produced with a level tone (left) and a rise-fall tone (right).
Table 1 F0 measurements of the pitch movement on the TU isnt it? Student 1 2 5 3 4 173 179 203 109 118 Pitch movement F0 Hertz 204-165 219 156 252 178 127 131 94 Key + tone Pitch range 81 402 151 311 176-281 109 196 93 163 4

Female

Male

Semitones 2.8/-3.7 3.5/-5.8 3.7/-6 2.6 1.8/-5.7

L-M / M-L / \ M-L / \ L-M L-M \

Figure 1: F0 tracks of the TU isnt it produced with a level contour (student No 3) and a rise-fall contour (student No 2) As for the other tag question, it was made clear from the context that the questioner didnt know the answer and so the appropriate phonetic signal would be a rising tone.

Youre not MOving, ARE you?

Here three students used the appropriate rising pitch contour, one student used level tone and one used level-fall tone. Since this type of tag question is not something that attracts much attention in primary school education, I would conclude that the students who made the mistake are not actually familiar with the kind of intonation that is supposed to be used when tag questions are not used simply for confirmation. Table 2 sums up the measurements for this item and Figure 2 shows F0 tracks of

the TU are you? produced with a rising tone (left) and a rise-fall tone (right). Table 2 F0 measurements of the pitch movement on the TU are you?
Student 1 2 5 3 4 170 186 213 103 101 Pitch movement F0 Hertz Semitones 259 7.3 195 184 0.8/-1 222-175 0.7/-4.1 149 6.4 137 5.3 Key + tone M-H / Pitch range 92 283 178 242 74 252 101 177 97 - 161

Female

L
H-L \ L-M / L-M /

Male

Figure 2: F0 tracks of the TU are you produced with a rising contour (student No 1) and a levelfall contour (student No 5)

Choice question Choice questions are the kind of questions that give the listener option to choose between two or more items. Here I concentrated on one type of choice questions when the listener is to choose only one of the alternatives. This question is more complex since it requires using rising intonation on the first item and falling on the second. Would you LIKE BEER or WINE? Only one student used rising intonation for the first item, three students used the inappropriate level intonation and one used level-rise intonation. As for the second item, all students used the appropriate falling intonation. Table 3 sums up the measurements for these items and Figure 3 shows F0 tracks of tone unit beer or wine produced with a risingfalling tone (left) and a level-falling tone (right). Table 3 F0 measurements of the pitch movement on the TU beer or wine?
Student 1 2 5 3 4
Female

Male

Beer Pitch movement F0 Hertz Semitones 199 317 8 229 204 - 273 -2 / 5 212 245 2.5 121 135 1.9 125 139 1.8

Key + tone M-H / L-H / M-H L L

Wine Pitch movement F0 Hertz Semitones 317 175 -10.3 277 231 -3.1 271 140 -11.4 191 111 -9.4 128 94 -5.3

Key + tone H-M \ H-L \ H-L \ H-L \ M-L \

Pitch range 83 319 204 291 178 242 111 - 203 207 - 317

Figure 3: F0 tracks of the TU beer or wine produced with a rising-falling contour (student No 1) and level-falling contour (student No 3)

Wh - question The intonation of wh-questions should generally be rising-falling. English wh-questions show a peak in the wh-word but the utterance usually has another peak that is higher than the wh-word and is perceived as more prominent. (Ladd,1997). Here I focused on the analysis of pitch peaks of the question word what and words doing and lately. Word doing was supposed to have a higher peak than the question word, and word lately was supposed to have a falling intonation. The question was: WHAT have you been DOing LATEly?
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Three students pronounced the question appropriately, while two of them produced the highest tone on the question word. However, for only one student the peak of doing was actually perceived as higher than the peak in the question word. Since this is not something that is generally taught in primary schools, I suppose that the mistakes the students made were due to the lack of their familiarity with this intonation pattern. Table 4 sums up the measurements for this item and Figure 4 shows F0 tracks of the question produced with a rising tone (left) and a falling tone (right).
Table 4 F0 measurements of the pitch peak on words what, doing and lately Pitch peak F0 Hertz (doing) 270 292 241 217 133

Student 1 2 5 3 4

Female

Male

F0 Hertz (What) 261 260 272 163 156

F0 Hertz (lately) 178 98 218 137 100

Semitones 0.6/-7 2/-19 -2/-1.7 5/-8 -2.7/-5

Key L-M-L H-H-L H-M-M M-H-L H-M-L

Pitch range 178 - 437 81 314 177 281 102 222 92 - 167

what

doing

lately

what

doing

lately

Figure 4: F0 tracks of the question What have you been doing lately? produced without a higher peak in doing (student No 4) and a with a higher peak (student No 3)

Yes/no question In English, yes/no questions are described as having a typically rising pattern. In the given question it was clear that the questioner was seeking information and thus the expected intonation was to be rising. The question was: Hey, are you GOing to MARKS PARty? Three students used level-rise pattern, one used fall-rise pattern and one used level tone to produce the question. It seems that students are aware that they should use rising intonation

for this question type. Table 5 sums up the measurements for this item and Figure 5 shows F0 tracks of the question produced with a level-rise pattern (left) and a level tone (right).
Table 5 F0 measurements of the pitch movement at the end of the TU ...Marks party? Student 1 2 5 3 4 224 251 214 119 118 Pitch movement F0 Hertz 194 272 207 302 182 274 110 - 164 140 Key + tone L-M / M-L-H \ / L-H / L-M / L-M Pitch range 191 313 207 317 171 318 90 246 109 - 160

Female

Male

Semitones -2.5/5.8 -3.3/6.5 -2.8/7.1 -1.4/7 3

Figure 5: F0 tracks at the end of the TU Marks party' produced with a level-rise contour (student 5) and a level contour (student No 4)

Conclusion The research aimed to check how Serbian EFL students use interrogative intonation at the beginning of their high-school education. Overall impression is that it is generally correct, although there are a few details that could be improved. As expected, the students had most problems with the choice question the kind of question that uses complex intonation which the students had probably never practised in their primary school education. Both kinds of tag questions (those seeking information and confirmation) were of the same difficulty to the students, although I expected the former to be harder to them since they should have been exposed to a considerable amount of practise with tag questions seeking only confirmation. On the other hand, the students had practically no problems with yes/no and wh-questions. Although the research was very limited in scope with respect to the number of participants, it suggests that the students have gained satisfactory knowledge on some points in the primary school. It also implies that since they generally had problems with items that were known to them, it might be good to practice intonation on those items with them and after a period of time conduct a similar research.

References Chun, D. 2002. Discourse Intonation in L2. From Theory and Research to Practice, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Paunovi, Savi, 2008. Discourse intonation - Making it work Marasco, O. Can intonation be imitated? Spontaneous production VS. elicited imitation of WH-questions.

Appendix 1 Text used for the reading task A: Hi, Peter! B: Hi, Sam! A: Come in. Make yourself comfortable. B: Thanks! A: Would you like beer or wine? B: Wine, please. So, what have you been doing lately? A: Nothing much. Doing some projects, reading books... Its a lovely day, isnt it? B: Yes, Im really enjoying it. Hey, are you going to Marks party? A: Im afraid I cant go. I have to pack some stuff. B: Youre not moving, are you? A: As a matter of fact I am. B: Oh, Im sorry to hear that.