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Discourse prosody planning in native (L1) and nonnative (L2) (L1-Bengali) English: a comparative study

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Abstract

This paper conducts a comparative study between L1 and L2 (L1 Bengali) English discourse level speech planning to investigate differences between L1 and L2 English speaker groups in the organization of discourse-level speech planning. For this purpose, English speech of 10 L1 English and 40 L1 Bengali speakers of the same discourse are analyzed in terms of using prosodic and acoustic cues by applying hierarchical discourse prosody framework. From this analysis, between-group differences in discourse level speech planning are found through the speech rate, locations of discourse boundary breaks as well as size and scope of speech planning and chunking units. Result of analysis shows that the speech rate of L1 English speakers is higher than that of L2 English speakers, L2 English speakers contain more break boundary than that of the L1 English speakers at every discourse level in the organization, which exhibit the fact that L2 English speakers use more intermediate chunking units and larger scale planning units than that of L1 English speakers. Between-group differences are also found through the analysis of phrase component at prosodic phrase level and accent component at the prosodic word level. These findings can be attributed to L2 English speakers’ improper phrasing, improper word level prominence and the ambiguous difference between content words and function words. The study concludes that the deficiencies in English strategy for L1 Bengali speakers’ discourse-level speech planning compared to L1 English speakers are due to the influence of L1 (Bengali) prosody at the L2 discourse level.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shambhu Nath Saha.

Appendices

Appendix 1: detailed information of L1 American English speakers

ID

Gender

Age (years)

Educational level

1

Male

23

Undergraduate

2

Male

25

Postgraduate

3

Male

21

Undergraduate

4

Male

22

Undergraduate

5

Male

27

Postgraduate

6

Female

28

Postgraduate

7

Female

24

Postgraduate

8

Female

26

Postgraduate

9

Female

22

Undergraduate

10

Female

23

Undergraduate

Appendix 2: detailed information of L1 Bengali speakers

ID

Gender

Age (years)

Educational level

Discipline

Number of years studied English

7

Male

25

Postgraduate

Engineering

10

18

Male

27

Postgraduate

Engineering

12

32

Male

22

Undergraduate

Science

10

39

Female

20

Undergraduate

Engineering

11

40

Female

23

Undergraduate

Arts

14

9

Male

22

Undergraduate

Science

12

31

Male

31

PhD

Education

21

10

Male

24

Undergraduate

Engineering

16

25

Male

34

PhD

Engineering

25

38

Female

32

PhD

Engineering

24

8

Female

27

Postgraduate

Humanity

19

14

Male

26

Postgraduate

Arts

20

1

Male

35

PhD

Engineering

27

26

Male

28

Postgraduate

Science

21

3

Female

29

Postgraduate

Social Science

23

13

Female

26

Postgraduate

Engineering

16

19

Female

32

PhD

Engineering

23

20

Male

35

PhD

Engineering

25

21

Female

28

Postgraduate

Science

20

4

Male

25

Undergraduate

Engineering

17

2

Male

27

Postgraduate

Engineering

18

23

Male

21

Undergraduate

Law

11

28

Female

32

PhD

Engineering

22

36

Male

25

Undergraduate

Engineering

16

35

Female

20

Undergraduate

Humanity

12

37

Female

25

Postgraduate

Arts

17

6

Male

29

PhD

Science

23

24

Female

31

Undergraduate

Science

26

34

Female

27

Postgraduate

Engineering

21

16

Male

33

PhD

Engineering

27

30

Female

35

PhD

Social Science

28

33

Female

24

Undergraduate

Social Science

17

12

Male

29

PhD

Engineering

22

11

Female

35

PhD

Social Science

23

17

Female

30

Postgraduate

Science

20

15

Female

29

Postgraduate

Engineering

21

29

Female

22

Undergraduate

Engineering

15

22

Male

26

Postgraduate

Engineering

19

27

Female

21

Undergraduate

Science

14

5

Male

35

Postgraduate

Social Science

29

Appendix 3: AESOP’s specified recording setup

The speech of L1 and L2 (L1 Bengali) English speakers was recorded by using AESOP’s recording tool kit with AESOP’s specified recording platform. The detailed description of AESOP’s specified recording setup is given below.

  • Recording environment

Recording can be conducted in quiet room, such as a seminar room, lab, or a class room.

  • Sound card

Sennheiser PC155 comes equipped with a built-in sound card. No driver installation is required.

  • Recording machine

Either a desktop PC or a laptop may be used. Connect the headset to the PC or Laptop. The CUHK-SIAT recording tool is compatible with the following operating systems: Windows XP Service Pack 2.

  • Recording tool kit

The CUHK-SIAT recording tool was developed by Chinese University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology. It was subsequently modified to fit the requirements of this project.

  • Audio file format

Source: microphone

Sampling rate: 16 kHz

Bit rate: 16-bit

Channel: mono

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Saha, S.N., Mandal, S.K.D. Discourse prosody planning in native (L1) and nonnative (L2) (L1-Bengali) English: a comparative study. Int J Speech Technol 20, 305–326 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-017-9409-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-017-9409-1

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