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KMID : 0917520070140030077
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Journal of Speech Sciences
2007 Volume.14 No. 3 p.77 ~ p.89
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A Study on the Intonation Contours of Students’ Groups by Oral Proficiency Level
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Yang Byung-Gon
Seo Jun-Young
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Abstract
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This paper examined the intonation contours of English sentences produced by the Korean students. Thirty students participated in the speaking tasks made up of three parts: an oral interview, picture description and a conversational text reading. Their pronunciations in the parts were recorded on a minidisk. Then, two native instructors evaluated their proficiency level focusing on general intelligibility and suprasegmental aspects of the speech. Based on the results of evaluation they were divided into two groups: high and low proficiency groups. The pitch contours of three sentences produced by both the Korean students and a native speaker were compared to find any similarities and differences in the students’ intonation patterns using Praat. Results showed that there was a moderate correlation in the proficiency scores of the students by the two native speakers. Secondly, students who earned high scores in the proficiency level matched better the native model. Thirdly, the high group students knew more on the pitch contour and tried to carefully realize them while fewer students in the low group answered positively on the questionnaire. In conclusion, English learners need to know the proper intonation patterns and to practice them consciously and sufficiently to realize correct intonation contours. Further studies would be desirable on the students’ pronunciation focused on discourse structure.
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KEYWORD
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intonation, pitch contour, suprasegmentals, proficiency level
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