This study examines the factors that influence Mandarin and Korean speakers' understanding of English pitch accent placement. The results show that both groups have difficulty determining whether a native English speaker is using the correct prosody for a particular discourse context. Participants' ability to do this task improved with greater English proficiency, as measured by the Versant English Test. Participants' success was also influenced by whether a sentence had broad or narrow focus, whether an accent was placed within a focused constituent, and by the number of contexts in which a particular accent placement is used.
Index Terms: cross-language, pitch accent, perception
Cite as: Baker, R.E. (2010) Non-native perception of native English prominence. Proc. Speech Prosody 2010, paper 171
@inproceedings{baker10_speechprosody,
author={Rachel E. Baker},
title={{Non-native perception of native English prominence}},
year=2010,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2010},
pages={paper 171}
}