Types of errors in English prosody made by native speakers of Korean

Abstract

This study investigates the types of errors that are made by speakers of L1 Korean in the production of L2 English prosody. English and Korean differ in prosodic and rhythmic structure and in the ways word prominence and semantic/pragmatic meaning are marked. In English, a prominent word is marked by a pitch accent on its stressed syllable, and semantic/pragmatic information is delivered by pitch accent types (e.g., H*, L + H*) and boundary tones. In Korean, a language without lexical stress, a word’s prominence is marked by its location at the beginning of a phrase, and semantic/pragmatic information is delivered by prosodic phrasing and boundary tones. Data were selected from recordings of the UCLA TOP (Test of Oral Proficiency) exam taken by Korean students. The present study analyzes the part where students (twelve) present information from the same syllabus in front of raters and questioners acting as students. Control data from three native English speakers was collected in the same format. Prominen...