A Comparative Study On The Prosodic Features Of Passage-reading Tasks And Impromptu Speech Tasks By Chinese Learners Of English From The Perspective Of The Centering Theory

This paper is an acoustic study of prosodic features by Chinese learners of English.The research corpus comprises passage-reading and impromptu speech tasks recorded by 16 upper-intermediate CLEs.It analyzes the prosodic features such as pitch,rhythm,and duration of these two oral tasks and examines correlations between the prosodic features and topic transitions based on the centering theory.Moreover,this paper attempts to explain the differences in prosodic features and the correlations from a psycholinguistic view.This paper applies qualitative and quantitative research methods.Firstly,the qualitative research method includes the literature research method,which is applied to study the research findings of L2 prosody in latest two decades to find the research gap.Secondly,the quantitative research method includes acoustic and data analysis.Specifically,this paper uses Praat to process voice corpus and SPSS to analyze speech data to provide objective and scientific research findings.This paper has made some progressive steps in the study of L2 prosody.Based on previous research,this paper optimizes the measurements for correlating pitch and durational parameters with topic transitions.Besides,it takes the initiative to examine the correlation between rhythmic parameters and topic transitions.Here are the research findings.Firstly,CLEs can grasp the overall supradeclination within a topic and raise the onset pitch to mark the beginning and the end of a topic unit.They can consciously raise the pitch to make a rough transition in impromptu speech tasks and expand the pitch range to make a rough transition in passage-reading tasks.Secondly,they are less likely to use speech rate cues to signal topic transitions when delivering an impromptu speech,but they tend to speak faster when they realize they change or retain topics in the passage-reading tasks.Besides,they are more likely to pause or break down when making rough changes in topics in the impromptu speech,while they perform better in passage-reading tasks.Thirdly,they tend to reduce vowels after making rough or smooth topic shifts when delivering an impromptu speech.When they roughly change topics in impromptu English speech,their performances on the syllabic structure are closer to the syllabic structure of Chinese.In contrast,when they roughly change topics in passage-reading tasks,their performances on the syllabic structure are closer to the syllabic structure of English.In passage reading tasks,they can perform well on vowel duration changes between the adjacent vowels,which is closer to the rhythmic pattern of English,and tend to make more dramatic consonant changes after making rough shifts in topics.The research findings of this paper are of research significance for the study of L2 prosody and pedagogical implications for teaching spoken English.Firstly,it provides an example of applying centering theory to studying L2 rhythm and proves it feasible.Secondly,it inspires researchers to conduct empirical studies to verify the feasibility of explaining the discrepancies in the L2 prosody of different oral tasks from a psycholinguistic view.Lastly,it inspires English teachers to teach students about applying the concept of topic transitions in spontaneous speech.