A data-based sketch of Phonological Grammar for L2 prosody-syntax
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2024/15/0030/000655Keywords:
prosodic, syntactic phrasing, intonation, information structure, L2 EnglishAbstract
This study investigates L2 learners’ prosody to outline Phonological Grammar for pedagogical purposes. The prosody data from Japanese learners of English was collected by the following procedures. Fifty-nine learners participated in the production tasks consisted of arranging cards into sentences and reading them aloud appropriately for a given context. Seventeen students in the surveyed learners’ group continued three-month lessons and took an interview test for the follow-up fluency assessment. The results indicated a significant correlation of prosodic naturalness with grammatical knowledge, showing that phrasal prosody could improve through the additional learning exposure while discourse/sentence prosody could not. These results lead to Phonological Grammar, a grammar that focuses on prosody tied to phrase structures.
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