An Experimental Phonetics Study On Hangzhou EFL Learners’ Prominence Patterns In Connected Speech

EFL learners’ speech in different regions has their own unique characteristics owing to various factors, such as regional dialect, learning environment etc. This paper explores the characteristics of Hangzhou EFL learners through experimental phonetic research by making a comparison with the native speakers in terms of the prominence patterns in connected speech.10Hangzhou EFL learners (6females and4males) and5native speakers (2females and3males) were recruited to construct the speech corpus, in which each speaker was required to read an easy-understanding passage with6six sentences (total113words). Extensive data were extracted from recorded speech and annotated in phonetic research software-Praat by applying the ToBI and IViE labeling system.The data underwent both qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the first part, by making comparison with the native speakers, Hangzhou learners’ consistency and inconsistency are analyzed in terms of the prominence distribution. Besides, based on the above data, further discussion was made from the perspective of grammar. In the second part, the accurate data of acoustic cues (pitch, loudness, duration and pitch slope) of100%consistent prominence were presented to examine the prominence manifestation of Hangzhou EFL learners.The findings show that:(1) Hangzhou EFL learners over-generate prominence but the degree of the overuse of prominence by Hangzhou EFL learners is lower than that of overall Chinese EFL learners;(2) Hangzhou learners perform poorly in dealing with grammatical items like pronoun, preposition and articles, in prominence production;(3) Hangzhou learners show weakness in producing verb phase prominence;(4) Hangzhou learners do use acoustic cues to signal prominence but with much higher pitch (especially females), slightly greater intensity and tend to adopt the opposite pitch movement tendency (rising, falling) to manifest prominence.In the final part, pedagogical implications and suggestions were given to improve Hangzhou EFL learners’ English acquisition.