A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTONATION CHARACTERISTICS OF SPEECHES BY CHINESE EFL LEARNERS AND NATIVE SPEAKERS

Intonation plays an essential role in verbal communication. Besides, intonation patterns that influence information transmission in speeches have always been a significant research focus in current years. Based on Halliday's intonation systems, this study investigated the intonation features, including tonality, tonicity and tone shown in speeches of Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers. In the study, the acoustic tool Praat and Excel were employed to label the data and analyze the obtained statistics. Results indicated that Chinese students were able to use tone groups and marked tonicity to emphasize the focus of information units. However, there existed some improper and excessive use of tonality segmentation and marked tonicity. Moreover, Chinese students showed more changeable tones when delivering speeches, which might create an understanding barrier of listeners. In order to improve Chinese EFL learners' use of intonation, a more thorough comprehension of the information units, key focus and meaning of each tone is required.