The impact of Intonation enhancing the pronunciation

1 DECLRATION Tile: The impact of Intonation enhancing the pronunciation of the 1st year English major students at University of Phan Thiet I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that report is originally written by me under the strict guidance of my supervisor Date submitted: May 14th 2016 Student Supervisor (Signature) (Signature) Phan Gia Thịnh Dr Huỳnh Công Minh Hùng ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr Huynh Cong Minh Hung due to his supports and helps during the process of conducting my graduation thesis I appreciate supports of the lecturers of the Faculty of Foreigner Languages Their supports help me completing the interviews I really thank the first year English major students who support me a lot to collect data by filling all the questions in the questionnaire Finally, I want to thank the friends who encourage me when I have depression They give me more power to accomplish this study Phan Thiet, April 23rd, 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS The impact of Intonation enhancing the pronunciation of the 1st year English major students at University of Phan Thiet DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATION LIST OF FIGURES Chapter I: INTRODUCTION .1 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Research Questions Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of intonation 2.2 Overview of intonation 2.2.1 Tonality 2.2.2 Tonicity 2.2.3 Tone 2.2.4 Tune-text association 13 2.3 Characteristics of intonation .15 2.4 Functions of intonation .16 2.5 Basic intonation pattern .19 2.5.1 Final intonation .19 2.5.2Non-final intonation .20 2.5.3 Tag question 21 2.6 Intonation variation 22 2.6.1 Intonation in Australian English and New Zealand English 22 2.6.2 Intonation in the British Isles 23 2.7 Related studies .24 2.7.1 The study of Tran Thi Dieu Thanh 24 2.8 Summary 26 Chapter III: METHODOLOGY .27 3.1 Instrument .27 3.1.1 Questionnaire 27 3.1.2 Interview 27 3.2 Research site 27 3.3 How to design 28 3.3.1 Define the research aims 28 3.3.2 Identify the population and sample 28 3.3.3 Decide how to collect replies 29 3.3.4 Design questionnaire 29 3.4 Hypothesis .29 CHAPTER IV: RESULT AND DISCUSSION 30 4.1 Discussion on questionnaire 30 4.1.1 The research question .30 4.1.2 The research question .40 4.1.3 The research question .54 4.2 Discussion on interviews 55 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 58 5.1 General conclusion 58 5.2 Limitation of the research 59 5.3 Further research 60 REFERENCES 61 APPENDIX LIST OF ABBREVIATION IP: intonation phrase HRT: high rising terminal ToBI: tones and break indices GlaToBI: Glasgow tones and break indices HCMC: Ho Chi Minh City LIST OF FIGURE Figure 1: The percentage of question Figure 2: The percentage of question Figure 3: The percentage of question Figure 4: The percentage of question Figure 5: The percentage of question Figure 6: The percentage of question Figure 7: The percentage of question Figure 8: The percentage of question Figure 9: The percentage of question 10 Figure 10: The percentage of question 11/1 Figure 11: The percentage of question 11/2 Figure 12: The percentage of question 11/3 Figure 13: The percentage of question 11/4 Figure 14: The percentage of question 11/5 Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale English pronunciation is one of tough issues that learners have to cope with Sounds, word stress, intonation are typical example They find English sounds are too different from Vietnamese sounds and difficult to pronounce Word stress is even harder for them because English word stress does not have certain rules to apply for all word Therefore, English learners have to remember by heart almost of vocabularies However, these two problems are not the most difficult because almost students can’t imitate exactly the intonation of native speakers It is too strange and not easy for them to speak like that Unfortunately, intonation is the extremely important factor to show how a student good in pronunciation and also play a significant role in communicate Intonation is used to carry a variety of information It could be a grammatical structure cues This role of intonation is as the punctuation of spoken languages, dividing utterances into separate units, and generally helping the listener to understand what the speaker says Intonation also conveys the speaker’s attitude such as friendliness, enthusiasm, anger, or excitement It is an important feature when we communicate Besides, different tunes and patterns of pitch serve different grammatical purposes If the speaker rises her voice at the end of the sentence, it will just a simple question Nevertheless, if the voice is fallen at the end of the sentence, it will be an exclamation Almost Vietnamese students have trouble with pronunciation Although they have a certain time learning English, they cannot manage to pronounce English well In my point of view, there are some reasons for this problem Firstly, from secondary or even primary school to high school, they are taught by teachers who also have trouble with pronunciation As a result, it makes wrong habits, when students pronounce words or sentences Secondly, English has some sounds that Vietnamese don’t have and English has some sounds sound like Vietnamese, but they are different Since, almost student feel hard to utter the weird sounds Because of some similarity, they often use Vietnamese sounds instead of English sounds Last but not least, students don’t know where their voice should go up or down English doesn’t have tone as Vietnamese, so it could be one of reason of their difficulty This course is designed to identify impacts of intonation of enhancing pronunciation, find out the problems of the first year major English student in pronouncing English and suggest some effective solutions The author hope result of this thesis could help student recognizing their mistake in pronunciation and finding an appropriate way to develop and practice their English pronunciation Aims of the study The purpose of this study is to find out impact of intonation on enhancing pronunciation of the first year English major students at University of Phan Thiet As a result, the main aims of this thesis are: Give a brief overview of the materials relating to intonation Raise some intonation problems encountered by the first year English major students when pronounce English Identify the impacts of intonation on enhancing the pronunciation of the first year students Scope of the study Due to time limitation and the length of paper, I want to focus my knowledge on intonation, some common intonation mistakes and problems of the student and suggest some solutions to solve the mistakes and problems That’s why I choose the impact of Intonation enhancing the pronunciation of the 1st year English major students at University of Phan Thiet as the subject for my thesis 10 Research questions These objectives could be summarized into some research questions as follows: To what extent, is intonation important for the first year students? To what extent, is intonation the problem of the first year students in pronouncing English? If yes, what are the impacts of intonation on enhancing the pronunciation of the first year students? Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 11 2.1 Definition of intonation There are different ways to define intonation Avery and Ehrlich (1992) consider in ‘Teaching American English Pronunciation’ that Intonation is normally called the melody of language because it assigns to the tone patterns that we use when we speak By another way, Bartels (2013) defines intonation just as a line can be express either in terms of its hills and its end-points, a pitch contour can be illustrated either as sequence of pitch movements is up and down or as the interpolations between a string of two or more target accents Intonation can be considered that it is how the voice goes up and down in pitch when we are speaking (Kelly, 2000) Tench (1998) gives a firmer definition of intonation which is that “intonation is the linguistic use of pitch in utterances” By using linguistic, he wants to avoid mention to uses of pitch such as signing and to personal and artistic evaluations about how nice or ugly an accent’s intonation is In general, intonation is about changing of the voice following certain patterns 2.2 The intonation system of English 2.2.1 Tonality Tonality is the system in intonation that divides spoken discourse into its separate individual units (Tench, 1998) Spoken discourse could be a syllable, a word, a message or a piece of information, but it is usually more than a piece of information Wells (2006) also considers that tonality is “the division of the spoken material into chunks.” He explains that each chunk has its own intonation pattern These chunks are known as intonation phrases or IPs (Various authors use various other names for the IP, including ‘word group’, ‘tone group’ and ‘intonation group’) In general, each clause is divided into a different IP However, the speakers not need to follow the rule in all cases They can divide a sentence or a clause in various word groups For example: 12 + Each clause is divided into a different IP Because I love music,| I learn to play the guitar When I finish the course,| I can play many songs + A sentence or a clause in various word groups They don’t know who she is They don’t know |who she is They |don’t know who she is They don’t |know who she is They |don’t know |who she is 2.2.2 Tonicity Halliday consider that “tonicity is the system by which an individual, discrete, unit of intonation is shown to have a prominent word which indicates the focus of intonation” In a sentence, the important word is highlighted by using intonation The speaker accent or add the pitch prominence to the stressed syllable “The accents that result are also the ‘hooks’ on which the intonation pattern is hung.” (Wells, 2006) Wells (2006) give three questions that “Which words are to have attention drawn to them by being accented? And which are not to be focused on in this way? In particular, where is the speaker to locate the last accent (the nucleus) within the intonation phrase?” The answers of these questions are explanation role and position of the nucleus in a sentence “The nucleus is the most important accent in the IP It indicates the end of the focused part of the material In terms of pitch, it is marked out by being the place where is the pitch change or pitch movement for the nuclear tone begins.” (Wells, 2006) 13 I think this hotel is spectacular I think this hotel is spectacular In this example the nucelus is the syllable ‘–tac-’ It is the point where tone movement begins, although there is difference of using the nuclear tone In this way both the syllable ‘–tac-’ and the word ‘spectacular’ are accented 2.2.3 Tone According Ranali (2002), tone is “the pitch movements distinguished by their particular direction or contour” Celik (2001) consider that a tone is a certain pattern of voice movement For example: (fall) They mustn’t go (rise) They mustn’t go (fall-rise) They mustn’t go Each tune has different meaning Wells (2006) consider that “a fall tone expresses that the information is revealed, or it is sent entirely While a rise of fallrise tone implies there is something more to be said by the same speaker or a different speaker He adds “the default tone (= the tone used if there are no special circumstances) for statements, exclamations, commands and ‘wh’ question is a fall, but for ‘yes-no’ question it is a rise A fall-rise often signals particular 14 implications.” Celik (2001) also shows some means of tones in speech such as “refer, proclaim, agree, disagree, question or hesitate, or indicate completion and continuation of turn-taking.” Roach (1983) give an example to show the means of tone “If English speakers want to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a definite, final manner they will probably use a falling tone – one which descends from a higher to a lower pitch If they want to say ‘yes?’ or ‘no?’ in a question manner they may say it with a rising tone – a movement from a lower to a higher one.” Roach (1983) mentions some functions of English tone through limited context of the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ There are five tones in his example Fall \yes \no According Roach, “this is the tone about which least needs to be said, and which is usually regarded as more or less “neutral”” If a question is replied \yes or \no, it will mean that the respondent has nothing to say more The fall tone could be a signal of “finality” A: Do you know John Smith? B: \yes In this case, B may mean that ‘I don’t want to know his story.’ The conversation should be ended here or A should change other topics Rise /yes /no In a variety of ways, this tone is a signal that the listener gives It means the listener is waiting something more that will be said by the speaker The conversation of A and B below is a typical example of this function: A (wishing to attract B’s attention): Excuse me B: /yes B replay ‘/yes’ may mean ‘what you want?’ B could continue: 15 A: Do you know John Smith? In this case, there are two situations First, B says /yes to invite A to continue to what she wants to talk about John Smith further Second, B says \yes to give a feeling of “finality” It means B doesn’t want to continue this conversation It is hard for A to continue saying about John Smith after B replies with a fall tone Fall-rise ˅yes ˅no The fall-rise is used a lot in English and has some rather special functions In the present context we will only consider one fairly simple one, which could perhaps be described as “limited agreement” or “response with reservations” Examples may make this clearer: A: I’ve heard that it’s a good school B: ˅Yes B’s reply would be taken to mean that he would not completely agree with what a said, and A would probably expect B to go on explain why he was reluctant to agree Similarly: A: It’s not really an expensive book, is it? B: ˅no Rise-fall ˄yes ˄no This tone shows fairly strong feelings of approval, disapproval or surprise Here are some examples: A: You wouldn’t an awful thing like that, would you? B: ˄no A: Isn’t the view lovely! B: ˄yes 16 Level _yes _no This tone is used to convey a feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring For example, when the teacher checks presentation of the students, she will use level tone to call each name, and the students are likely to respond with _yes when they hear their name called The fall, rise and fall-rise tone are various There are three particular types of fall: a high fall, a low fall and a rise-fall The high fall and the low fall are simple falls, while the rise-fall is complex fall (Wells, 2006) Examples below illustrate why they are simple and complex A high fall involves a falling pitch movement from a relatively high pitch to a low pitch (Wells, 2006) Wonderful A low fall involves a falling pitch movement from a mid pitch to a low pitch (Wells, 2006) Wonderful A rise-fall involves a complex pitch movement, starting with a rise from a mid pitch to a high pitch and then a fall from high to low, finishing on a low pitch The initial mid pitch may be somewhat prolonged before the start of the upwarddownward movement The most prominent part is the initial rise (Wells, 2006) Wonderful 17 The fall-rise tone is used in some contexts such as “polite correction partial correction, and negation, in commands warning” (Wells, 2006) The tone also has three particular types: mid fall-rise, rise-fall-rise, and high fall-rise The mid fall-rise is the default type of the fall-rise tone It begins from a high fall on a high pitch to a low pitch, and then it has a mid rise, finally it ends on a mid pitch (Wells, 2006) Wonderful The rise-fall-rise starts with a rise on mid pitch to high pitch Following it is high fall to a low pitch Finally, it rises from low pitch to mid pitch Wonderful The high-fall-rise has a fall on mid pitch to a low pitch at first Next, it rises from low pitch to high pitch Wonderful The rise tone has four particular types There is three rise tones (high rise, low rise, and wide rise) and mid level Because of sharing same meaning with low rise, mid level is classified as a rise tone (Wells, 2006) The high rise has a rise from amid pitch to a high pitch Wonderful 18 The low rise tone begins from low pitch and rise to mid pitch Wonderful The wide rise is a combination of low rise and high rise Wonderful The level mid maintains on mid pitch It is not rises or falls Wonderful In Intonation of colloquial English, Connor and Arnold (1973) mention ten tone groups Commonplace situations are used to describe ten tone groups Connor and Arnold explain them vividly to help learners remember easily Although the tones are described by a different way, there are some identical points of ten tone groups and tones mentioned by Wells The Low drop: imagine a small child, standing on the bottom stair and then jumping down to the foot of the stair case: Low Fall No Nobody I’m possible It’s Arthur’s turn The High Drop: now imagine a parachutist descending from a great height and finally landing: High Fall No Splendid! It’s a mazing What’s that? 19 The Take-off: your plane taxis along the runway as speed: Low Pre-head and Low Head Then finally it begins to rise into the air: Low Rise No Sometimes I think so The Low Bounce: first you hold a ball at arm’s length high in the air: High head Then, when you have thrown it to the ground, it rebounds into the air: Low rise What’s that? Try not to be late The Switchback: now you are enjoying a ride on the switchback at a fair It takes you down: Falling Head Then up and down and up again: Fall-Rise ... TABLE OF CONTENTS The impact of Intonation enhancing the pronunciation of the 1st year English major students at University of Phan Thiet DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATION... solve the mistakes and problems That’s why I choose the impact of Intonation enhancing the pronunciation of the 1st year English major students at University of Phan Thiet as the subject for my thesis... to intonation Raise some intonation problems encountered by the first year English major students when pronounce English Identify the impacts of intonation on enhancing the pronunciation of the