Prosodic Features Of Verbal Irony Read By Chinese EFL Learners

Verbal irony,from the perspective of language communication,is not only a rhetorical device but also a communicative mode.With its literal meaning differing from its intended meaning,verbal irony enables speakers to convey real intentions indirectly.Meanwhile,to help listeners realize the particularity of the on-going communication,various strategies are adopted by speakers,among which prosody is frequently used to achieve communicative goals.The present study attempted to reveal the prosodic features of verbal irony read by Chinese EFL learners.An empirical experiment was carried out to find out 1)the prosodic features that distinguish ironic utterances from sincere utterances among Chinese EFL learners,2)the prosodic features that distinguish sarcastic irony from kind irony among Chinese EFL learners and 3)the different ways in which native speakers and Chinese EFL learners convey irony.35 participants(30 Chinese EFL learners and 5 native English speakers)were recruited to read 20 target sentences.The recording was then analyzed acoustically with Praat,a voice processing software.Parameters including pitch,intensity and tempo were extracted and prosodic features such as the change of pitch,intensity,speech rate and nucleus distribution were depicted.The major findings were:i)Intensity and tempo were constant parameters in distinguishing ironic utterances from sincere utterances read by Chinese EFL learners.Wider intensity range and greater intensity variation were the most indicative features of verbal irony.The average speech rate of ironic utterances was 0.4246 syll/s slower than that of sincere utterances.As to pitch,it was found to be quite a sensitive parameter which changed drastically in the two subtypes of ironic utterances.Compared with sincere utterances,sarcastic irony was marked by a prosodic pattern of lower mean F0 and less F0 variation;however,there was no statistically significant difference in pitch between sincere utterances and kind irony.ii)When comparing sarcastic irony with kind irony,there was no statistically significant difference in tempo and intensity.Pitch was the primary parameter in distinguishing sarcastic irony from kind irony read by Chinese EFL learners.Compared with utterances of kind irony,utterances of sarcastic irony were characterized by narrower F0 range and less F0 variation.iii)Chinese ELF learners differed from native speakers in reading verbal irony.Overall,both groups of participants adopted intensity and tempo to convey irony.When it comes to the two specific subtypes,Chinese EFL learners used lower pitch(mean FO)and weaker pitch variation(FO SD)while the native speakers used wider pitch range(FO range)to convey sarcastic irony.As to kind irony,Chinese EFL learners only employed the slower speech rate while the native speakers employed wider intensity range(intensity SD),higher intensity(mean intensity)as well as the slower speech rate to convey it.Moreover,there existed differences in the way the two groups employed nucleus to convey irony.Different from native speakers,Chinese EFL learners stressed a large number of final/pre-final grammatical items,viewing them as marked nucleus to help convey irony.The present study could not only fill some research gaps on the study of verbal irony,but also give some enlightenment on the language learning,which is to help learners understand indirect speech by the learning of verbal irony.