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4.1.2.1 Overall post-training scores (Hypothesis 1)
Interestingly enough, the overall comparison of the post-training scores (marked out of seven: cf. 3.2.3.) obtained by the two groups reveals that neither group is better than the other after the trainings. As a consequence, neither training has had a better effect on the French EFL learners’ read production capacities than the other. The detailed […]
4.1.2.2 Scores for the words (Hypothesis 2 n.1)
Given that Group A received a training at the phoneme-level and the word-level, the participants of this group should have better scores at individual words than those in Group B, who received a training that was more centred on the whole phrase. Yet, if Birdsong’s (2003) claim about the link between prosody and segmentals is […]
4.1.2.3 Scores for the phrases (Hypothesis 2 n.2)
As Training B was based on prosodic features and thereby implied oral practice at the sentence level, Group B should have obtained better scores for phrase reading than Group A. The analysis of the mean post-training scores for phrases, detailed in Table 3 below, indeed seems to confirm Hypothesis 2 #2, contrary to the mean […]
4.2. Within-groups design
4.2.1. Hypotheses Hypothesis 3 Hypothesis 4 4.2.2. Results Evolution of Group A (Hypothesis 3 #1 Evolution of Group B (Hypothesis 3 #2 Overall evolutions of Group A vs. Group B (Hypothesis 4 #1 Evolutions of Group A vs. Group B for phrases and words (Hypothesis 4 #2) Retour au menu : Experimental research into the […]
4.2.1. Hypotheses
First and foremost, it should be reminded that the rating task was blind, and the pre-training and post-training recordings were completely randomized before being given to the listenerjudges. In order to investigate the importance of prosody with respect to segments in EFL acquisition, we should now consider how the French subjects’ production skills evolved from […]
4.2.2. Results
In order to calculate the evolution of the learner’s pronunciation skills within each group from the first recordings to the second recordings, the following mathematical formula was used: [(target value – source value) / source value ] x 100 The source value corresponds to the the pre-training score, and the target value is the posttraining […]
4.2.2.1 Evolution of Group A (Hypothesis 3 n.1)
As expected, the subjects belonging to Group A have obtained better scores after the training than before the training. This result proves that the segmental training has helped them increase their pronunciation capacities concerning read speech. Table 4 below shows the mean pre-training scores and post-training scores that were given to Group A by the […]
4.2.2.2 Evolution of Group B (Hypothesis 3 n.2)
Concerning the evolution within Group B, the hypothesis is also confirmed, as can be seen in Table 5, which presents the detailed mean scores before and after the suprasegmental training and the evolutions in percentage, whether it is an increase (+) or a decrease (-): Table 5: Pre-training to post-training evolution of Group B Surprisingly […]
4.2.2.3 Overall evolutions of Group A vs. Group B (Hypothesis 4 n.1)
Analyzing which of the two groups has evolved more than the other after the trainings enables us to get further insight into whether prosodic features can actually help learners improve their production skills at the segmental level and not only at the suprasegmental level, as is claimed in Birdsong (2003), for example. In fact, a […]
4.2.2.4 Evolutions of Group A vs. Group B for phrases and words (Hypothesis 4 n.2)
As far as the productions of read phrases are concerned, we have hypothesized that Group B would evince a stronger evolution than Group A, mainly because Training B included oral practice at the level of the entire phrase. Yet, the opposite is actually found; the segmental group showed a greater evolution from pre-training to post-training […]
4.3. Discussion of the results
4.3. Discussion of the results 4.3.1. Between-groups: Hypotheses 1 and 2 4.3.2. Within-groups: Hypotheses 3 and 4 Retour au menu : Experimental research into the acquisition of English rhythm and prosody by French learners
4.3.1. Between-groups: Hypotheses 1 and 2
The major claim of this work was that the importance of prosody in the acquisition of English as a Foreign Language by French learners is as strong as, indeed stronger than, the importance of segmental features such as phonemes. By extension, our view was that intelligibility and the welfare of communication greatly depended on the […]
4.3.2. Within-groups: Hypotheses 3 and 4
The within-groups analysis of the pre- and post-training scores was supposed to show that both groups had better scores after their respective trainings than before the trainings (Hypothesis 3), even if this might have seemed to go without saying. Indeed Group A increased by 23.5%, and Group B increased by 8%, as was reported in […]
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 5.1. Conclusion 5.2. Future work REFERENCES Retour au menu : Experimental research into the acquisition of English rhythm and prosody by French learners
5.1. Conclusion
Throughout this work, the main objective has been to enhance the role of prosody in L2 phonology acquisition, and its contribution to intelligibility. In the theoretical section (Chapter 1), we saw that, interestingly enough, French teachers of English as a Foreign Language tend to focus on phonemes when it comes to pronunciation teaching, thereby overlooking […]
5.2. Future work
The creation of this pilot experiment now serves as a basis for future comparative studies on the acquisition of English segments and suprasegments by French learners. Given the limitations of this study, more elaborate experiments investigating the role of prosody in intelligibility, foreign-accentedness, and communication in general, are required. As was reminded several times throughout […]
REFERENCES
Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Atoye, R. O. (2005). Non-Native Perception and Interpretation of English Intonation. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 14 (1), 26-42. Auer, P. (1993). Is a Rhythm-Based Typology Possible? A Study of the Role of Prosody in Phonological Typology. KontRI Working Paper No. 21. Konstanz, Fachgruppe […]
APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE OF SELECTION
1. Nom : 2. Prénom : 3. Âge : 4. Pays de résidence : 5. Nationalité : 6. Langue maternelle : 7. Quelles études faites-vous ? 8. À quel âge avez-vous commencé l’anglais ? 9. Quelle est votre moyenne d’anglais (sur 20) approximative en milieu scolaire ? 10. Pensez-vous avoir un accent anglais britannique, américain, […]
APPENDIX B: FRENCH-SPEAKING SUBJECTS
Retour au menu : Experimental research into the acquisition of English rhythm and prosody by French learners
APPENDIX C: STIMULI
The tables below present the stimuli that were used in the experiment, i.e. the words and the sentences, as well as details about each of them. The following abbreviations are used: N° = number of the item; W = word; P = phrase; # Syll. = number of syllables that the item consists of; V/C […]
APPENDIX D: INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE RATING TASK
French speakers recorded English words and sentences. All you have to do is: listen to the sound file; score the recording on a 7-point scale (roughly: 1 = terrible/unintelligible/very strong foreign accent; 2 = very bad; 3 = bad; 4 = so-so; 5 = good; 6 = very good; 7 = nativelike/ no foreign accent). […]
APPENDIX E: SCORES
These are the scores (out of 7) that were given to each recording by the three listener-judges. The first table gives the scores of the productions before the trainings, and the second table shows the scores after the trainings. The following abbreviations and symbols are used: S00 = Subject n°00; W00 = Word n°00; P00 […]
NOTES
CHAPITRE I 1 According to Roach’s glossary (2009), the term suprasegmental was originally used by American writers, whereas prosody was more British. Throughout this work, the term prosody encompasses stress, rhythm, and intonation. 2 The phonemic transcriptions are from Wells’s Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 2007. 3 Throughout this work and in the several studies that are […]
INTRODUCTION
In everyday speech, it is very common to come across such phrases as it’s not what you said but the way you said it, or a situation in which a mother disapproves of her child’s tone (Wells, 2006). These simple instances seem to provide some evidence that not only phonemes, but the global structure of […]
CHAPTER 1. ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AND FRENCH LEARNERS
1.1. The status of English pronunciation teaching in France 1.1.1. The place of pronunciation in EFL classes 1.1.2. Segments vs. suprasegments in EFL pronunciation teaching 1.2. Phonological difficulties for French speakers 1.2.1. Segmental difficulties and recurrent errors Consonants Vowels 1.2.2. Suprasegmental difficulties and recurrent errors Intonation Lexical stress Rhythm 1.2.3. French vs. English: syllable- and […]
1.1. The status of English pronunciation teaching in France
1.1. The status of English pronunciation teaching in France 1.1.1. The place of pronunciation in EFL classes 1.1.2. Segments vs. suprasegments in EFL pronunciation teaching 1.2. Phonological difficulties for French speakers 1.2.1. Segmental difficulties and recurrent errors Consonants Vowels 1.2.2. Suprasegmental difficulties and recurrent errors Intonation Lexical stress Rhythm 1.2.3. French vs. English: syllable- and […]
1.1.1. The place of pronunciation in EFL classes
As Abercrombie (1967) puts it, spoken language and written language can be defined as two different yet complementary mediums of one and the same language. The learning of a language should include both of them equally, even if they may be taught separately in school context. In our view, the teaching of English pronunciation in […]
1.2. Phonological difficulties for French speakers
It is not rare to hear French students say that English pronunciation is “too difficult”, “too irregular”, or “too different”, hence very bad results in phonetics exams – the mean mark of students doing an English degree is sometimes around 5 out of 20. In this respect, Abercrombie (1967: 20) evokes the idea that a […]
1.2.1. Segmental difficulties and recurrent errors
As is specified in Avery and Ehrlich (1992), many English words were borrowed from French after the Norman Conquest. Still today, the two languages share many vocabulary items, at least orthographically. As regards pronunciation, the difficulty encountered by French speakers is noticeable, and it partly originates in too great an influence of spelling (Burgess & […]
1.2.1.1 Consonants
At the phonemic level, English and French consonants do not seem to differ very much, and misproductions do not overly affect communication. That may explain why EFL teachers prefer to focus on English vowel sounds, which have more evident differences with French. Phonetically, however, English and French consonants are almost systematically articulated differently even as […]