LONGITUDINAL CHANGES IN THE USE OF PARATONES IN L2 ENGLISH SPEECH BY MANDARIN SPEAKERS

Résumé

First language (L1) English speakers have been observed to organize their oral discourse into macro-units analogous to paragraphs in writing. These units, called paratones (BROWN, 1977) or phonological paragraphs (TENCH, 1996; THOMPSON, 2003), are characterized by extra high pitch at the beginning of a new discourse topic (YULE, 1980). The present study investigated how seven second language (L2) graduate students’ use of paratones developed naturalistically during their first six months immersed in an L2 environment. The participants, all L1 speakers of Mandarin, were recorded delivering four short academic presentations at approximately two-month intervals. Presentations given by two native English speakers were also analyzed for comparison. Overall, the L2 participants’ pitch peaks at topic shifts were considerably less prominent than those observed in the native-speaker data. Only one participant’s use of paratones seemed to change over time, showing improvement from the beginning to the end of the study.