E-Prime을 이용한 영어 학습자의 억양변화 인지에 대한 연구

Abstract

This study investigated whether the perception of interrogative sentence intonation between English and Korean may be perceived differently. Korean interrogative sentences have the rising intonation while English ones have either the rising or falling intonation. For instance, in English yes-no questions have rising intonation whereas wh-questions have falling intonation. However, in Korean there are only rising intonation ones. The L2 sentences were recorded by an English native speaker. By using Praat version5.1, pitches were manipulated. Reaction time was measured by E-Prime Psychology Software, version2. 20 participants took part in this study. The data from them were analyzed based on following: 1) Participants can recognize the difference between the manipulated intonation and the original one. 2) Depending on English proficiency, there is some perception differences among groups. 3). Depending on English part of speech, there is some differences among groups. The results and suggestions follow. First, participants cannot recognize the different pitch. There were no meaningful difference between the reaction of the original intonation and that of manipulated one. They might recognize the sentence by syntactic rules. Second, if the participants are highly proficient they recognize the sentence by syntactic rules and intonation altogether. Lastly, there are some differences in the word class such as noun and adjective. However, if the participants are less proficient they recognize the sentence by syntactic rules only. In the follow-up research, a correlation should be proven between English proficiency and intonation perception of interrogative sentences. The findings may be used by Korean English textbooks and teachers as a intonation pedagogy