Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Same but Different: The Pragmatic Potential of Native vs. Non-native Teachers’ Intonation in the EFL Classroom

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 15))

Abstract

This article investigates the pragmatics of intonation in teacher talk in a pre-school spoken corpus of EFL (UAM-Corpus). First, a descriptive analysis (Halliday, Intonation and grammar in British English. Mouton, The Hague, 1967; Halliday, A Course in spoken English: intonation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970) presents the prosodic realisations of native vs. non-native EFL teachers’ discourse. Second, the investigation unveils the multifunctionality of prosody within and across both pedagogical contexts (native and non-native teachers) to evaluate the relationship between the communicative functions displayed in the classroom and the prosodic choices. And third, the study suggests some pedagogical implications in language teaching considering the qualitative and statistical findings: there is a correlation between the display of a communicative function and its prosodic realisation in both contexts but both groups of teachers exploit intonation differently.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The “tone group” (Palmer 1922; Armstrong and Ward 1926; O’Connor and Arnold 1961; Brazil 1975), “rhythm unit” (Pike 1945), “tone unit” (Halliday 1967; Crystal 1969), “intonation unit” (Chafe 1987), “intonation group” (Cruttenden 1997) or “pitch sequence” (Brazil 1975) are many of the terms encountered in the literature when referring to the division of speech into workable operationalisation of speech.

  2. 2.

    cf. Riesco-Bernier (2003) for a full account of the intonation system.

  3. 3.

    Both groups displayed the same variety of prosodic choice in the remaining 56% of the cases.

  4. 4.

    We shall refer to “communicative value” in this section as the degree of association between the interaction “communicative function” and “prosodic realisation”.

  5. 5.

    Cf. Riesco-Bernier (2003) for a comprehensive analysis of the pitch height in relation to the communicative functions.

References

  • Altmann, G.T.M. 1997. The ascent of Babel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, L.C., and I.C. Ward. 1926. A handbook of English intonation. Cambridge: Heffer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Austin, J.L. 1962. How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banse, R., and K.R. Scherer. 1996. Acoustic profiles in vocal emotion expression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70: 614–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, S., M. Gutfreund, D. Satterly, and G. Wells. 1983. Characteristics of adult speech which predict children’s language development. Journal of Child Language 10: 65–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bates, E. 1976. Language and context: The acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, R. and J. Sherzer, eds. 1974. Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brazil, D. 1975. Discourse intonation. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, R. 1977. Introduction. In Talking to children, language input and acquisition, ed. C. Snow and C. Ferguson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J.S. 1975. The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language 2: 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bryant, G., and C. Barrett. 2007. Recognizing intentions in infant-directed speech. Psychological Science 18: 746–751.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cenoz, J., and L. Perales. 2000. Las variables contextuales y el efecto de la instrucción en la ­adquisición de segundas lenguas. In Segundas Lenguas. Adquisición en el Aula, ed. C. Muñoz, 109–127. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chafe, W. 1987. Cognitive constraints on information flow. In Coherence and grounding in ­discourse, ed. R.S. Tomlin, 21–51. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang, H.W., and S.E. Trehub. 1977. Auditory processing of relational information by young infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 24: 324–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, A.D., and N. Ishihara. 2004. A web-based approach to strategic learning of speech acts research report. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, A.D., and R. Shiverly. 2003. Measuring speech acts with multiple rejoinder DCTs. Language Testing Update 32: 39–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, W.E., S.J. Eady, and P.R. Mueller. 1985. Acoustical aspects of contrastive stress in question-answer contexts. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 77(6): 2142–2156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruttenden, A. 1981. Falls and rises: Meanings and universals. Journal of Linguistics 17: 77–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruttenden, A. 1994. Phonetic and prosodic aspects of baby talk. In Input and interaction in language acquisition, ed. C. Gallaway and B.J. Richards, 135–153. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cruttenden, A. 1997. Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crystal, D. 1969. Prosodic systems and intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeCasper, A.J., J.P. Lecanuet, M.C. Busnel, C. Granier-Deferre, and R. Maugeais. 1994. Fetal reactions to recurrent maternal speech. Infant Behavior & Development 17: 159–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dore, J. 1974. A pragmatic description of early language development. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 3(4): 342–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dore, J. 1975. Holophrases, speech acts, and language universals. Journal of Child Language 2: 21–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edlund, J., D. House, and G. Skantze 2005. The effects of prosodic features on the interpretation of clarification ellipses. In Proceedings of Interspeech-2005, Lisbon, Portugal, 2389–2392.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eefting, W. 1991. The effect of ‘information value’ and ‘accentuation’ on the duration of Dutch words, syllables and segments. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 89(1): 412–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ernst, G. 1994. ‘Talking circle’: Conversation and negotiation in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 28(2): 293–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, C. 1964. Baby talk in six languages. American Anthropologist 66: 103–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, C. 1977. Baby talk as a simplified register. In Talking to children, language input and acquisition, ed. C. Snow and C. Ferguson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernald, A. 1989. Intonation and communicative intent in mother’s speech to infants. Is the melody the message? Child Development 60: 1497–1510.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fernald, A. 1992. Human maternal vocalizations to infants as biologically relevant signals: An evolutionary perspective. In The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, ed. J.H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby, 391–428. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernald, A., and P. Kuhl. 1987. Acoustic determinants of infant preference for motherese speech. Infant Behavior & Development 10: 279–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fernald, A., and H. Morikawa. 1993. Common themes and cultural variations in Japanese and American mothers’ speech to infants. Phonetica 57: 242–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, A. 2001. Prosodic features and prosodic structure. The phonology of suprasegmentals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frota, S. 2002. Nuclear falls and rises in European Portuguese: A phonological analysis of declarative and question intonation. Probus 14: 113–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garnica, O.K. 1977. Some prosodic and paralinguistic features of speech to young children. In Talking to children, language input and acquisition, ed. C. Snow and C. Ferguson, 63–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazdar, G. 1981. Speech act assignment. In Elements of discourse understanding, ed. A.K. Joshi, B.L. Webber, and I.A. Sag, 64–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geis, M.L. 1998. Speech acts and conversational interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geluykens, R. 1987. Intonation and speech act type an experimental approach to rising intonation in queclaratives. In Journal of Pragmatics 11: 483–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodenough-Trepagnier, T., and F. Smith. 1977. Thematization and intonation in the organization of sentences. Language and Speech 20: 99–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graesser, A.C., K. VanLehn, C. Rose, P. Jordan, and D. Harter. 2001. Intelligent tutoring systems with conversational dialogue. AI Magazine 22: 39–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halliday, M.A.K. 1967. Intonation and grammar in British English. The Hague: Mouton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halliday, M.A.K. 1970. A course in spoken English: Intonation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halliday, M.A.K. 1975. Learning How to mean. Explorations in the development of language. London: Edward Arnold.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halliday, M.A.K. 1985/1994. An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hasan, R. 1996. Semantic networks: A tool for the analysis of meaning. In Ways of saying: Ways of meaning. Selected papers of Ruqaiya Hasan, ed. C. Cloran, D. Butt, and G. Williams, 105–131. London: Cassell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnstone, T., and K.R. Scherer. 2000. Vocal communication of emotion. In Handbook of ­emotions, 2nd ed, ed. M. Lewis and J. Haviland, 220–235. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kloth, S., P. Janssen, F. Kraaitmat, and G.J. Brutten. 1998. Communicative styles of mothers interacting with their preschool-age children: A factor analytic study. Journal of Child Language 25: 149–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ladd, D.R. 1996. Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leech, G.N. 1983. Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinson, S.C. 1994. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levis, J.M. 1999. Intonation in theory and practice, revisited. TESOL Quarterly 33(1): 37–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Llinares-García, A. 2002. La interacción lingüística en el aula de segundas lenguas en edades tempranas: análisis de un corpus desde una perspectiva funcional. Tesis Doctoral, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

    Google Scholar 

  • Long, M.H., and C.J. Sato. 1983. Classroom foreigner talk discourse: Forms and functions of teachers’ questions. In Classroom oriented research in second language acquisition, ed. H. Seliger and M.H. Long, 268–287. Cambridge: Newbury House Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, J.R. 1992. English text: System and structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, J. 1998. Elephant 2000: A programming language based on speech acts. Stanford University. http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/elephant/elephant.html

  • Mochizuki-Sudo, M. 1991. Production and perception of stress-related durational patterns Japanese learners of English. Journal of Phonetics 19: 231–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, B. 1997. Identity and intonation: Linking dynamic processes in an ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 31(3): 431–451.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nagata, M., and T. Morimoto 1994. First steps towards statistical modelling of dialogue to predict the speech act type of the next utterance. In Selected papers presented at the international symposium on spoken dialogue, 193–203. New York: Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. Available from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id  =  208248.205964

    Google Scholar 

  • Nooteboom, S.G., and J.G. Kruyt. 1987. Accents, focus distribution and the perceived distribution of given and new information: An experiment. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 82(5): 1512–1524.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Connor, J.D., and G.F. Arnold. 1961. Intonation of colloquial English. London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, H.E. 1922. English intonation (with systematic exercises). Cambridge: Heffer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickering, L. 2001. The role of tone choice in improving ITA communication in the classroom. TESOL Quarterly 35(2): 233–257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pike, K.L. 1945. The intonation of American English. Ann Arbor: University Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radden, G. 1992. The cognitive approach to natural language. In Thirty years of linguistic evolution, ed. M. Pütz, 513–541. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramírez Verdugo, M.D. 2003. Análisis contrastivo de los sistemas entonativos del inglés en la interlengua de hablantes no nativos. Implicación en la organización de la información desde la perspectiva funcional. Estudio basado en un corpus computerizado de aprendices españoles de lengua inglesa. Tesis Doctoral, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riesco-Bernier, S. 2003. From Discourse-Semantics to Phonology: A Cross-stratal Analysis of the Interpersonal Function in the EFL Pre-school Teacher Talk. Trabajo de Suficiencia Investigadora, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riesco-Bernier, S., and J. Romero-Trillo. 2008a. The acoustics of ‘Newness’ and its pragmatic implications in classroom discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 40: 1103–1116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riesco-Bernier, S., and J. Romero-Trillo. 2008b. What does the tonic say in pre-school teacher talk in the EFL classroom? An acoustic-based analysis of tonicity. In Institutional discourse in cross-cultural contexts, Lincom studies in pragmatics, vol. 14, ed. R. Geluykens and B. Kraft, 147–169. München: Lincom Europa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez K.J., and D. Schlangen 2004. Forma, entonación y función de solicitudes de clarificación en diálogos instruccionales en alemán. Revista de Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 33: July.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romero-Trillo, J., and A. Llinares-García. 2001. Communicative constraints in native/non-native preschool settings. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 6(1): 27–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosch, E. 1977. Human categorization. In Studies in cross-cultural psychology, vol. 1, ed. N. Warren, 3–49. London: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosch, E. 1978. Principles of categorization. In Cognition and categorization, ed. E. Rosch and B. Lloyd, 27–48. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sachs, J. 1977. The adaptive significance of linguistic input to prelinguistic infants. In Talking to children. Language input and acquisition, ed. C. Snow and A. Ferguson, 51–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salaberri Ramiro, M.S. 1999. El discurso del profesor en el aula y su relación con las tareas de aprendizaje. Universidad de Almería: Servicio de Publicaciones. CD-Rom Tesis Doctoral 37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, M. 1998. Wordsmith tools. Version 3.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J. 1969. Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J. 1975. Indirect speech acts. In Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, ed. P. Cole and J.L. Morgan, 59–82. New York: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J. 1976. The classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5: 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair, J.Mc.H., and D. Brazil. 1982. Teacher talk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair, J.Mc.H., and M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards an analysis of discourse. The English used by teachers and pupils. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sluijter, A.M.C., and J.M.B. Terken. 1993. Beyond sentence prosody: Paragraph intonation in Dutch. Phonetica 50: 180–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snow, C. 1979. Conversations with children. In Language acquisition, ed. P. Fletcher and M. Garman, 363–376. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stern, D.N., S. Spieker, R.K. Barnett, and K. MacKain. 1983. The prosody of maternal speech: Infant age and context related changes. Journal of Child Language 10: 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, J., and F.D. Horowitz. 1983. The effects of intonation on infant attention: The role of the rising intonation contour. Journal of Child Language 10: 521–534.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swerts, M., and R. Geluykens. 1993. The prosody of information units in spontaneous monologue. Phonetica 50: 189–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tench, P. 1996. The intonation systems of English. London: Cassell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, W.F., E.G. Schellenberg, and G. Husain. 2004. Decoding speech prosody: Do music lessons help? Emotion 4: 46–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trainor, L.J., C.M. Austin, and R.N. Desjardins. 2000. Is infant-directed speech prosody a result of the vocal expression of emotion? Psychological Science 11: 188–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler, A. 1992. Discourse structure and the perception of incoherence in international teaching assistants’ spoken discourse. TESOL Quarterly 26(4): 713–729.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verschueren, J. 1999. Understanding pragmatics. New York: Arnold.

    Google Scholar 

Online Resources

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. English Department, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Silvia Riesco-Bernier

Authors
  1. Silvia Riesco-Bernier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Silvia Riesco-Bernier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Fac. de Filosofía y Letras, Uni. Autónoma de Madrid, C/Francisco Tomás y Valiente 1, Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Jesús Romero-Trillo

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Riesco-Bernier, S. (2012). Same but Different: The Pragmatic Potential of Native vs. Non-native Teachers’ Intonation in the EFL Classroom. In: Romero-Trillo, J. (eds) Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching. Educational Linguistics, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3883-6_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation