Cross-linguistic influences on the production of English intonation by Chinese EFL learners

Intonation plays an essential role in English speech communication. Incorrect intonation patterns may affect a speaker’s intended meaning, leading to misunderstandings. However, previous studies have shown that producing appropriate intonation patterns is incredibly hard for second language (L2) learners. Recent research has indicated that deviations observed in L2 learners’ production of intonation might be attributed to the interference from the intonations of their languages. However, few studies have investigated the production of English intonation from cross-linguistic analysis of intonation. Therefore, based on the second language intonation learning theory, the present study aims to examine the production of English intonation by Chinese EFL learners. Two language groups of participants took part in this survey: twelve native English speakers and thirty-six Chinese EFL learners. The learners were classified into three groups based on their scores in the Chivox National Spoken English Test, ranked from high to low: the advanced, intermediate, and elementary groups. The reading task comprised ninety dialogue pairs. The participants were instructed to read Part B of each dialogue pair aloud after listening to Part A extracted from a native English speaker’s recording. Two raters transcribed the recordings using Praat 6.2.14, and the researcher analyzed the data using SPSS 20.0. The results showed that, first, the learners exhibited poor scores in producing different types of English pitch accents, edge tones, and intonation patterns, with varying degrees of differences compared to the native English speakers. Second, the native English speaker group only demonstrated significant differences from each of the three L2 learner groups in four of the ten types across the three aspects of English intonation, and no significant differences were found between the three learner groups. Third, there were significant differences among the types of each of the three aspects of English intonation for the learners and the native English speakers. Nevertheless, this impact was greater on the learners regarding the number of significant differences. Finally, focus position influenced the learners’ production of eight of the ten intonation types. In contrast, its influence was relatively less significant on the native English speakers, involving four of the ten intonation types. The analysis of the results showed that the native English speakers deviated from some of the findings reported in the literature, primarily due to regional variations in American English (L*+H and L-H%) and difficulties in distinguishing H* and L+H*. Also, several factors impacted their results, including the cases where targeted words were not accented (Na), the cases where there were other accented words following targeted words (P), and the cases of edge tone caused by Na, with or without accented words following it (NP). As for the learners, they did not receive sufficient input about English intonation knowledge. In addition, the factors influencing their results included Chinese intonation, Na, Chinese prosody (P), and NP. The main findings of this study enrich the L2 intonation learning theory in multiple ways and provide important references for future English intonation teaching and reform.

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