Native speaker reactions to Japanese EFL learners' speech, looking at intonation as an intention conveyor: A pilot study

The Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET)

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The JapanAssociation of College English Teachers {JACET)

Native Speaker Reactions to Japanese EFL Learners' Speech,Looking at Intonation as an Intention Conveyor: A Pirot Study

Kazuhito YAMATO

Hiroshima University, Graduate School

1. INTRODUCTION

Pragmatics, prosody and nonverbal communioation have been overlooked in languageteaching. Howeve4 some research has begun to shed some light on these areas. Hurley

(1992) suggests that pragmatics, prosody and nonverbal communication need to be taughtto L2 learners.

"Learning skills in these areas could enable L2 learners to communicate

more effectivelM without having inappropriate gestures or 4 conversational strategies

sabotage the communicative intent of their utterances (p.259)." Moreove4 it is oftenpointed out that the Japanese EFL learners (hereafter JEFLLs) tend to have low

proficiency in speaking, not-only at the segmenta1 level but also at the suprasegmenta1

level. Although quite a lot of research has been done at the segmental level, intonationhas been overlooked in Japanese ELT despite the importance and increasing interest insuprasegmentals. In the present pilot studM I would like to focus on intonation in order to

see how well JEFLLs use intonation in real conversational settings.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 Pragmatic meaning of intonation . ･

Numerous functions have bee.n assigned by various researchers to intonation･such as

attitudinal, grammatical, accentual, discoursal and so on. Arnong these functions, quite a

few researchers have arrived at the consensus that intonation has pragmatic meaning(s).In other words, intonation can be seen as an intention conveyon

'IYpical

examples which have been cited in many studies (such as Hatch, 1992; HurleM1992) are the bus driver and cafeteria incidents in Gumperz (1977). With regard to the

formeg a bus driver uttered-"Exact change, please" with extra loudness, high pitch, andfa11ing intonation on rzN PLEAset7 and that made the passenger feel he (the bus driver)was being rude. The other incident happened in a cafeteria. A non-native member of staiiC

offered gravy but with fa11ing tone which implied an assertion that this was gravy･(tonative speakers), while the native speakers (hereafter NSs) would have said

"gravy"

with

rising tone. Both cases were caused by wrong (inappropriate) intonation conveying the

pragmatic meaning of the utterance. Gumperz mentions the importance of the connection

between intonation and pragrnatic meaning. . ･

Chun (1988) emphasizes the importance of intonation which contributes "the

pragmatic or functional rules which govern the use of utterances in spoken discourse

(p.295)." She also deals with intonation as having a place in eommunicative competence.

Using Brazil et al. (1980)'s concepts such as keM pitch concords, she explains howintonation is exploited to show social and discourse functions. Fbr example, the utterance

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The JapanAssociation ofCollege English Teachers {JACET)

"Wbuld you close the door?" can be said in variQus ways using diliferent intoriation (and of

course context) such as "impatiently

or angrily by a parent to a child, with'fa11ing,"imperative"

intonation, a wider pitch range , and louder volume (Chun, 1988, p.298)." Clennell (1997) argues that

"the

successfu1 use of ,discourse

intonation could well bethe key to effective cross-cultural communication (p.117)." In･the same vein, headvocates the relationship between intonation and speech actsJ One bf his pointS is thatintonation conveys the illocutionary force (pragmatics meaning in his term) and he givesthe example of irony llYou can ZiMAgine how NTHRILLed I wasll (p.120) said bY'a tutorhaving to take extra students into his tutorial. Fbiling to perceive the

'meaning conveyed

by tntonation may well disrupt the flow of the discourse.

As we have seen from the arguments, intonation plays an important role in discourseand conveys pragmatic meaning. In other words, there is. a strong relationship betwe.en.intonation

and speech acts (pragmatics). Fbr example, the utterance "Ykes"

with various

intonation means as fo11ows:

VNYES,V "finality"l"Iamcertain"

"ZYESt7 "something

more to fo11ow", "invitations

to continue", "Did

you say ye'sl ",

- ,"Pleasegoon" ･

'' ･

llZNYESll "rather

strong feeling of approval, disapproval or surprise", "The

answer

is yes. Why do you ask?"

"YZYESx7 "limited

agreement" or "response

with reservations", "I

am doubtfu1"

"->YESll "a

feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring" (Roach,

- 1983, pp.117-119; Shimizu, 1995, pp.88-89).

In the present studM the above meaningS and description of intonation will be referredto in the analysis of the data since the adjacency' pairs which contain

"Yes" will be

extracted.

2.2 Native speakers' reaction

As the objective of language learners and teachers in speaking competence has beenshifting toward

"comfortably intelligible (KenworthM 1987)')", one of the concerns is to

what extent native speakers can view non-native speakers' speech as intelligible or

comprehensible. Eisenstain (1983) raiSed the question of the intelligibility of the Englishof teaching assistants in U.S. universities, and studies on native speakers' judgmeht havebeen done by many researchers (e.g. Albrechtsen et al., 1980; Fhyer and Krasinski, 1987;Anderson-Hiseh et al., 1992; Munro and Derwing, 1995). Some studies revealed that

prosodic deviance of non-native speech caused less intelligible and comprehensible speech

than segmental deviance (e.g. Andeson-Hiseh et al., 1992), whereas some suggested that

segmenta1 deviance is more serious than prosodic (e.g. fayer and Krasinski, '1987).

It canbe summarized that all the studies were concerned with native speakers' judgment onhow close to NSslriative-like non-native speakers' speech is. This may well mean that as

long as non-native speakers' speech makes sense in terms of syntax and has native likepronunciation in general, it is judged as intelligible and comprehensible. The problemhere arises that non-native speakers could make themselves understood with their

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intelligible and comprehensible English but they may not be able to convey their intention

well enough to be regarded as intelligible and comprehensible.

There are not many studies which are concerned with intention matching between NSs

and non-native speakers. When NSs perceive not only surface structure but also deep

structure, they have finally got messages from non-native speakers. What previousstudies did is to consider NSs as judges and what these studies lack is seeing them as .interlocutors, i.e. ones who exchange meanings. Given that intonation has pragmaticfunction as mentioned before, native speakers have to perceive (or judge) whether the

utterance with the intonation effectively conveys the intended meaning of the speaken Therefore, in the present pilot studM the intention of non-native speakers was asked

straight after the recordings and also the perceptions of NSs were checked. From the

view of deviance in intonation, (mis)matching of their intention and perception is analysed

and discussed. '

2.3 English spoken by Japanese EFLLs It is widely accepted the idea that Ll characteristics interfere L2 acquisition. Pbtential

cause of the unintelligible speech can be derived from Ll, in this case, Japanese. Several

researchers have looked at English intonation by Japanese EFLLs. Hosaka (1998)compares English intonation produced by both NS and Japanese EFLLs, and summarizes

that Japanese EFLLs often speak English with:

(1) frequent use of prominence

(2) frequent level tone choice

(3) occurrence of each tone: falling>level>rising>fa11-rise and rise-fa11

(4) deviated use of tone unit boundaries(p.113).

All these characteristics could cause the impression of monotonous speech by JapaneseEFLLs (due to (2) and (3) above) and sound

"staccato" (due to (1) and (4) above).

Characteristics mentioned above are derived from Ll, Japanese. It is often mentioned

that Japanese language is mora-timed language and English is stress-timed language,

which makes some difference in rhythm. Also, Japanese is word-pitch language and

English is intonation language. The former gives pitch on word-base unit, which makes

the difference in meaning and the latter sees pitch over the utterance (Kinbozono and

Ohta, 1998).

Thus, in this pilot studM there will be some deviations by Japanese EFLLs, which are

due to the characteristics mentioned above and the interference from Japanese.

1

3. THE STUDY -

3.1 Research question The purposes of the present study are three-fold: (1) to see ifJEFLLs can convey their

intentions to NSs; (2) to see how NSs perceive JEFLLs' utterances; and (3) unless

research question (1) is satisfactorily achieved, to investigate the cause of that from the

view of intonation deviance.

In the present studM I would like to focus on two adjacency pairs from the dialogue (see

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Appendix A):

(1) A: Are youJapanese?

B: "fes,Iam.

(2) A: Are you spending the summer here? ･

B: Yes. (Are you?) ,

The reason for choosing these adjacency pairs is that the relationship between themeaning and

"Yes"

is relatively clear as mentioned in Roach(1983) and Shimizu (1995) and

is known well and that there wi11 not be so many other factors coming in (e.g. pausing dueto the length, stuttering, and muttering and so on).

3.2 Participants

As table 1 below shows, the 6 Japanese EFL learners who participated in this study are

students at a language school in Auckland, New Zealand. They are 2 males and 4 femaleswith ages ranging from 19 to 21, all of whom have been in New Zealand for 6 to 7 months.Five of them were staying with host families who were originally from Scotland, SouthAfrica and New Zealand and the other is sharing a fiat with a Japanese and a Chineseitiend. None of them has been overseas more than three weeks other than this stay Halfof them have finished senior high school and the rest have finished two years of juniorcollege. In addition, infdrmant #3 and #6 mentioned that they' have attained TOEFLscores of 463 and 534 respectively

Thble 1: Description of JEFL informants.

infoii:tp.ant sex age

H

:fASozbnfoh

ersn

)

M

thsetaIYitYntNhzeY

whotheystaywith quaiification

#1 F 21 7 home stay New Zealander#2* F 20 6 home stay New Zealander#3 F 19 7 home stay New ZealanderTOEFL 463#4 F 20 7 home stay South African#5* M 19 6 home stay Seottish

#6 M 19 7 flattingJapanese and

ChineseTOEFL 534

'' control group

With respect to the respondents, 9 native speakers of English (NSs) participated in thestudy2'. Eight of them were enrolled at the University of Auckland and the other was a

research assistant at the same university They were 4 males and 5 females, ages ranging

iirom 18 to 33. A variety of speakers of English participated: Maori, Samoan, Singaporean,South African, New Zealander of European origin. Three of the respondents had basicknowledge of linguistics.

3.3 Procedures

First of all, the recordings of interactions between JEFLLs and a native speaker of

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English (a New Zealander) were conducted. JEFLLs were asked to speak (read) the

dialogue as naturally as possible as if they were in the situation. 'IXvo

of the JEFLLs (#2and #5) were assigned as the control group and were asked to express a negative attitude

towards the NS when they did the recordings. After the recordings, the JEFLLscompleted the post-questionnaire which asked about their intentions on the interaction on

the whole and on each conditioned interaction (see Appendix B for the extracts of the

post-questionnaire forJEFLLs). '

Having recorded the interactions by JEFLLs and the NS, the tape was listened to and

judged impressionistically bsing a questionnaire by the NS respondents. The tape had 2

parts, one of which contained the whole dialogue and the other has each part of

interactions in detail. The respondents chose appropriate impression(s) they perceivedfrom the tape and commented why they decided on such impression(s) (see Appendix Cfor the extracts of the questionnqire for NSs).

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this studM the focus was on 2 adjacency pairs in the dialogue which include "Yes,

I

am" and "Yes".

Here, I would like to look at each of JEFLLs' intentions and NSs'

reactions in turn. On the description of the results, males and females are divided since

generally males produce lower voice pitch than females.

4.1 "Yes, I am."･

'Ib

begin with, with regard to "Yes,Iam",

The number of NSs' responses is shown

below in 'Ibble

2. I would like to discuss JEFLLs' intonation as for males and females in

turn.

'Ihble

2: NSs' impression on. "Yes,

I am." and intentions of JEFLLs.JEFLLs thenumberofNSs'responses

Informantno.Intentionsa)Yes.And?Pleaseoon.b)Yes.Whydoouask?c)Yes.ButIamdoubtfu1.Others(comments)

'#1'

b) 1 5 2Pleaseleavemealone.

#2* b) 4 3 oYes,andI'mproudofit.Littleemotion.

#3 a), 4 4 1 o

#4 a) 6 o 3 o

#5* b) o 4 1Goaway.That'sit.Don'tbotherme.

#6 a) 2 6 1 o.

' control group.

Male informants (#5 and #6)

As for males, #5 seems to have succeeded in conveying his intention on b) `CWhy.do

you ask?". Post-questionnaire revealed that his intention was "I

want to leave here as

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soon as possible." 'Ib

this utterance, 4 NSs chose b) and 4 d) specifying "Go

away","That's

it. Preoccupied with something erse", "Yes,

don't bother me" and "No

real

emotion-just answer the question." These 4 specifications correspond to his comment,therefore in tota1 8 NSs perceived his intention. His intonation contour was a sharp fa11ingtone on

"Yes" andalevel tone on

"I

am" with low key CtVNYESI')I am/D. Quitea fewNSs mention his monotonous tone and low key as the factors on deciding. It is not certain

that #5 was able to conttol his tone and key as he wanted to. He might have justhappened to correspond his natural voice and intention, which he was supposed to do asthe contro1 group. On the other hand, #6 could not satisfactorily convey his intention a)"Yes.

And? Please go on" to NSs. Tb his utterance, 6 NSs chose b) and most of themcommented that his utterance was

Àbrupt".

His intonation contour was a sharp fa11ingtone on

"Yes"

and slight fa11 on ."I ain" with a very short utterance (/7NYES"ZNI AMID.His abrupt utterance and additionally his rise-fa11 tone on

"I am" could well mean his

surprise or annoyance at the question. As well as #5's case, #6's voice is low with sharpfa11ing. It is often said that Japanese males' speech tends to be lower than'that of females(LovedaM 1981 cited.in KenworthM 1987). This innate low key might also be the cause of

negative feedbaek from NSs.

IFbmale informants (#1 to #4)

As for females, #2 and #3 seem to have had dithculties in conveying their intentions.#2, in the control group, selected b) "Why

do you ask?" with a comment "Ybu

should haveknown (I am Japanese)." And as she intended, 3 NSs chose b) and 1 of 2 NSs chose d)specifying

"Yes,

and I- am proud of it." They commented "Slightly

bothered", and`fApprehensive"

probably reflecting her rise-fall tone on "Yes".

At the same time,

howeve4 the same number of NSs misunderstood her intention as a) "Yk)s.

And? Please goon" because of her high key voice and slight rising tone on

"I am" which could mean she

was interested and asking for more. SimilarIM #3 selected a) since she felt interested and"tried

to sound normal" in her comment. Half of the NSs chose a) and the rest b) exceptfor 1 vote for c). Her rising tone on

"Yes"

probably attracted 4 NSs and the fa11-rise tone,

particularly the fa11ing part, suggested "Why

do you ask?" or finality as one of the NSsmentioned:

"pitch

fa11s a lot end of phrase." Both #1 and #4 got an agreement from morethan half the NSs. Howevez it is not certain whether #1's intention was positive ornegative, although most of the NSs commented negatively such as

"uninterested",

"unsure" and one of the comments was

"Please leave me alone."

As far as "YesIam"

is concerned, all 6 JEFLLs could not completely succeed inconveying their intentions even though a few of them had some kind of agreement with

more than half of the NSs. Looking closer at the comments the NSs made, we found thatintonation is one of the crucial factors which conveys speakers' intentions. Furthermore,intonation by JEFLLs did actually confuse NSs' decisions.

4.2 "Yles."

The number of NSs' responses is shown below in 'Ilable

3. I would like to discuss

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JEFLLs' intonation as for males and females in tum.

'Ihble

3: NSs' impression on "Ybs."

and intentions of JEFLLs.JEFLLs ThenumberofNSs'responses

Informantno.Intentionsa)Iam.certain.b)Iamdoubtfu1.c)Whydoyouask?d)Yes.

Pleasegoon. Others(comments)

#1 a)'1

2 5 o OfcourseIarn.

#2* b) 6 o 1 2 o

#3 a) 3 o 2 3 Isn'tthatobvious?

#4 a) o 8 o oYes,butIdon'treally

wantto.

#5. c) .4 o 3 1 Justyes.Uninterested.#6 Iamtoo! 6 1 2 o o

* control group.

Male participants (#5 and #6)

As the 'Ilable

3 shows, #5 does not appear to match his intention c) "Why

do you ask?"

with his comment: "just

tried to keep the conversation going." #5's choice of intentionitem contradicts his comrrient because c) is supposed to express quite strong

disagreement or surprise. Looking at the NSs' comments closelM most of the NSs

commented for example "Short,

even tone, displaying little emotion or interest",Àbrupt",

"Short

reply monotone", and "indfierent

tone." These comments are more or

less true since his intonation contour was a level tone fo11owed by a sharp fa11ing tone

(xlt->NYESLX), Thus, from the view of #5's comrnent, the NSs perceived his intention

relatively well in spite of the small number of NSs who chose the correct item. On the

other hand, #6 had 6 NSs selecting a) "I

am certain" while his intention was e) specifYing

as "I

am too." This can be easily considered as match. His intonation contour was a sharp

fa11ing tone (x7YYESID. Despite the agreement, some of the NSs (even though they chose

a)) mentioned his monotonous voice or abruptness due to his swift answer made him

sound uninterested. As commented about males on `'Yes,

I.arn", males tend to speak in a

low key and Japanese, in general, have a tendency tp speak with abrupt change of Pitchwithin a word probably due to the infiuence from Japanese (Kubozono, 1998).

Fbmale informants (#1 to #4)

As for the females, none of them achieved more than haif of the NSs' agreements on

their intentions. #1 intended to be a) "I

am .certain" with her comment: "I

was justinterested." Although her intonation contour was a fa11ing tone (llNYESID, a detailed look

at the contour reveals that the fa11ing tone did not move (fa11) as much as the others, and

not enough to be perceived as a fa11ing. Due to that rather fiattened falling tone, the NSs

perceived her utterance as Àloof,

disinterested tone", and "Doesn't

really sound

interested." As well as #1, #3 selected a) adding the comment: "Curious

to know what

Speaker A is going to do." Her intonation contour was a rise-fa11 tone with long high key

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(!7ZYYES17). Overall, the impressions of the NSs were generally positive such as

"Candid",

"Pleasant"

and "Interested."

Howeveg depending on the part of intonation they

perceived, their interpretations changed slightly and that illustrates the distribution in the

'Ihble.

In this part of the dialogue, #2 and #4 had an interesting reverse incident. I would like

to describe their cases respectively #2 intended to be b) "I

am doubtfu1" comrnenting in

the questionnaire "Ybs,

perhaps, maybe." Her intonation contour was llZNYESU. Fbr

that utterance, none chose b), 6 chose a), 1 chose c) and 2 chose d). InterestinglM none of

NSs chose b), probably due to her rise-fa11 tone. Howeve4 6 NSs 'went

for a) "I am

certain" in spite of her rise-fa11 tone. This is for the same reason as before, which is herhigh keM revealed from the NSs' comments as

"tone

high" because the fa11ing proponionis far larger and the NSs picked up the fa11ing part of the intonation. M6reoveg althoughshe is in the control group which was supposed to be rather disinterested, she was

perceived as a keen speaker by the NSs, which is overall contrary to her intention. On theother hand, #4 intended to be a)

"I

am certain" with her comment of "of

course, yes",although her intonation contour was llYZYESll meaning

"I am doubtful." As the

intonation contour shows, 8 NSs went for b) "I

am doubtfu1'l and 1 for e) specifying "yes,

but I don't really want to", thus all the NSs picked up her tone, which was completely

opposite to her intention. This would cause disruption to the flow of the discourse. Threeof the NSs mentioned about intonation as

"slow

up-pitch end", "tone

sounded down" and"fa11ing

pitch + tone" which seem to have captured different parts of the tone. Byreversing the intonation contour, there would be a huge difference in the followingdiscourse or consequences as Brazil (1997) points out (p.67). These cases are goodexamples of such consequences.

Not many JEFLLs could successfuIly convey their intentions here, eithez In this partof the dialogue, two cases where the opposite intentions were understood occurred andthey were most likely due to the wrong intonation since many of the NSs mentionedintonation

as the facton As for the others, the NSs perceived intonation sensitively and

reacted in accordance with it in providing comments, All in all, it can be said that JEFLLscould not use intonation effectively as an intention conveyon Why does this happen? Iwould like to discuss the reasons of this.

As the findings from the analysis revealed, there seems to be quite a few potentialcommunication breakdowns. Fbr example,

"fes" uttered by #4 led NSs to understand "I

am doubtfu1" which was completely opposite to her intention of "I arn certain". Sheconveyed the wrong pragmatic meaning by delivering the wrong intonation. In this studMsmce

the dialogue is set for JEFLLs, what JEFLLs say is the same but the reactions byNSs were scattered over a wide range. The reason why this happened is not only becauseof the individual voice qualities they had, btht also because the varieties of intonation theJEFLLs produced. The effective use of intonation helps the flow of the discourse gosmoothly and this is what JEFLLs need to learn. ･ -

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4.3 'What causes the problem? ,

Having said that JEFLLs have some problems with their intonation, why can't JEFLLsexploit intonation well enough to communicate without disruptions? One reason for this

could be that they have not learned intonation sufficiently at junior and senior high school:

In fact, howeveg they have learned some intonation rules such as "at

the end of YeslNo

questions, use a rising tone" and."Wh-questions, use a fa!ling tone." These rules are

based on syntactic structure rather than pragmatic meaning and tend to ignore the

exceptions that would happen quite often in accordance with the speaker's intention

(Thompson, 1992; Cauldwell and Hewings, 1995). I would like to argue that pragmatic

meaning of intonation is what JEFLLs need to learn in junior and senior high school

settings or at least tertiary education level. .

Another reason why JEFLLs can not use intonation effectively is the differencg

between English and Japanese. It is often said that non-native speakers tend to be

infiuenced by their mother tongue when they speak English. As seen from the data in this

study males especially produced sharp fa11ing tone which is one of the characteristics of

Japanese speech. It can be said that transfer from the Ll is a powerfu1 factor which may

lead to confuse NSs' perception. Howeveg transfer is not the sole problem which JEFLLshave and which deteriorates the fiow of the discourse. Pennington (1987) describes the

problems ofJEFLLs as fo11ows: .

(1) too much attention to individual sounds and words and not enough attention to

the characteristics of stretches of speech;

(2) a premattire focus on accuracy rather than fluency;

(3) reliance on "bottom-up"

rather than "top-down"

speech production and speech

processlng strategtes;

(4) reliance on native language or universal strategies for placement gf pauses, stresses and intonation peaks;

(5) use of a native language voice quality setting and native language articu!ations

of individual phonemes (p.12) '

As the quotation shows, JEFLLs tend to produce English without relating it to the

meaning, as well as transferring intonation patterns from the Ll. Moreove4 in the present

studM they could not relate their pronunciation to the meaning even though they did think

about their intention.

4.4 NSs' comments

With regard to the NSs' comments on what led them to arrive at their impression, they

oft6n described the JEFLLs with various'adjectives such as '"abrupt",

"happy",

"sullen",

"(dis/Un)interested" etc. Moreoveg some of the NSs went beyond adjectives and picked

up intonation as a factor which influenced them in deciding. Fbr example, in "voice

seemed raised towards the end (comment to #2's "Yes,

I am")", the NS described the

rising tone quite accurately Although some of the NSs had some knowledge of linguistics

and were able to specify intonation, even those without such knowledge including the

example above could detect intonation in their own words, such as "tone

of the voice", or

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"sounds

asking questions." This shows how well intonation plays a role in the utteranceand how deeply involved intonation is in oral communication. ,

Nevertheless, their descriptions of intonation are not necessarily accurate. They oftenperceive only a part of the intonation contoun Fbr instance, one of the NSs commented"rising

intonation (comment to #3's "'Yes")", although the actual intonation contour was a

rise-fa11 tone. In this case, howeveg the NS could not perceive the JEFLEs intention andchose the different item. Another example shows that NSs' perception of intonation didnot get the agreement in #4's "Yes".

As seen before almost all the NSs agreed,that #4sounded doubtfu1 and three of them referred to intonation. Howeveg these descriptionsdo not match each othen

'IWo

NSs mentioned pitch fa11ing (or down) and the other said up-

pitch, whereas the actual contour was a fa11-rise. It could be said that they perceived only

part of the intonation or misunderstood the intonation. This illustrates how delicatei - --- -intonation or perceivmg mtonaUon is and also that NSs do perceive intonation.

One thing which has become clear is that intonation does have an important ･role toplay in conveying speaker's intentions. It should be noted that not only intonation but alsoother prosodic features such as stress, rhythm, pause and paralinguistic features like facialexpressions and gestures play crucial roles. The relationship between these elements andthe extent of their signficance can be investigated in further research.

4.5 Issues on teaching intonation

In relation to teaching intonation, what teachers who teach JEFLLs should bear in mindis the idea that the learners have the potential of disrupting the flow of discourse due totheir not knowing the pragmatic functions of English intonation. Even though the JEFLLsin this study all had been in New Zealand for more than half a year; they had not been ableto fu11y acquire the intonation system(s). It is even clearer that JEFLLs in Japan would not

have a clue about intonation other than some basic rules. SurelM there iS a definite need

for teaching intonation in Japan. In addition, conscious, or explicit teaching of intonation,in other words, analytic approach of learning should probably be promoted (Celce-Murcia,Brinton and Goodwin, 1996). ''

'IWo

teaching examples can be referred to: one was carried out in an EFL environment,

Malaysia and the other was done in Australia (L2 environment). The former was theexplicit and systematic intonation teaching at a Malaysian high school (Goh, 1995). Withinthe framework of Brazil et al. (1980) and Brazil (1997), prosodic items such as prominenceand tones were arranged systematically and taught for about ten weeks. It isacknowledged that the learners made progress to some extent. This is quite similar to thesituation in Japan and could be brought into Japanese system. The latter Australianteaching was a consciousness raising･technique done by Clennell (1997). He used thistechnique with international students at the University of South Australia (i.e. L2environment). The needs of the real life situation helped to encourage learners to acquirethe intonation system(s). Through authentic'recordingslmaterials, learners'consciousness was raised and they were hopefully brought up to an acceptable

performance level. As Roach (1983) stated,-it is important "to train learners to be aware

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of and sensitive to the way English speakers use intonation (p.142)." Bearing in mind the

fact that JEFLLs have the potential to experience breakdowns in communication due to

poor intonation, teaching such as the two methods above can be conducted.

5. CONCLUSION AND REMAINING ISSUES In conclusion, JEFLLs could not exploit intonation as an intention conveyor possiblydue to the lack of teaching intonation as such (not even knowing that intonation works' as

such) and probably Ll interference.･ That led to NSs' misunderstanding utterances by

JEFLLs, resulting in (potential) communication breakdown. In addition to Llinterference, the pragmatic meaning of intonation has been overlooked in Japanese EI;I:

The significance of this function of intonation should be highlighted and also explicit and

systematic teaching in this area shouldbe promoted.

As remaining issues, since this is the pilot study conducted with a small number of

both JEFLLs and NS participants, it will be necessary to have a larger number of the

participants for validity and reliability of the study Moreoveg in relation to intelligibilityfurther research can be called for dealing with interactions between non-native speakers.

Besides the clearer definition of intelligibility should be considered.

'

NOTES1)

2)

In this studM the definition of "intelligibility"

fo11ows "the

degree to which a message

can be unde'rstood (Richards, Platt and Platt, 1992, p.184)." Howeveg this definitionis' still far from the adequate one.

'Ilaylor

(1994) mentions that the discussion on

intelligibility often overlooks the increasingly lar:ge number of opporturiities which

non-native speakers' interaction and the bilateral nature of intelligibility (i.e. both

speaker and hearer should be intelligible for achieving mutual communication).

In this pilot studM the number of NSs-is limited and the varieties of NSs are wide-

ranged. Particularly the latter should be described in depth. As mentioned in thestudM NS participants are from variou.s backgrounds even though their first language

is English. While this could easily be criticized as a invalid study for the lack of inter-rater reliabilitM it could still be said that NS .from varied backgrounds can react the

same to the utterance with a particular intonation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This paper is rewritten based on the research project paper submitted to the

University of Auckland. I would like to thank Jackie GreenwoQd, University of Aucklandand Akihiro･Ito, Aichi Gakuin UniversitM fbr their insightfu1 comments and valuable advice

for earlier version of this manuscript.

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APPENDIX A: The whole dialogue used in the recordings.

Setting: "Ybu

(Speaker B) are at your fr"iend's 21st birthday party Ybu are just introducedto Speaker A. IVbte: Ybu did not like SPeaher A vei), much when you were fit:st introdticea

fou would rather cut (zffthe conversation as soon as Possible so that you can talle to someone

else (Italicized part is provided only for the contro1 group).A: Are you Japanese?B: Yes,Iam.A: I don't know many Japanese people.B: Don't you?

'

A: Are you here for holiday?

B: No, actuallM I'm a student here, learning English.

A: Oh, so are you spending the summer here?

B: Yes. Are you?

A: Wt)!1, no. I'm going to the Bay of Island `cos

my brother lives there.

B: Oh, really

APPENDIX B: The extracts from the post-questionnaire for JEFLLs.3. With respect to each part of your conversation, what was your attitude or feeling? If

there is anything else, please specify;

3.1. A: Are you Japanese? B: Yes,Iam.

a) Ybs. And? Please go on. b) Yes. Why do you ask? c) Yes. ButIam doubtfu1.

d) Others (please specify): '

How did you come up with the answer above? Can you explain your mind or process to

that answer?

3.4. A: Oh, so are you spending the summer here?

B: Yes. Are you?"ifes"

parta)Iam certain.

' b)Iam doubtfuL c) Why do you ask?

d) Yes. Please go on. e) Others (please specify):

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How did you come up with the answer abpve? Can you,explain your mind or process tothat answer?

APPENDIX C: The extracts of the questiormaire for NSs.Novr you will hear the same conversations but these will be cut in parts as well as indifferent orde: Please choose the impression and comment on each one.

A: Are youJapanese? ･

B: Yes,Iam. ･.

How didBsound like? ･

a) Yes. And? Please go on. b) Ybs. Why do youask? c) Yes. ButIam doubtful.d) Others (please specify):

Comment: what made you decide Speaker B was as above?

A: Oh, so are you spending the summer here?B: Yes. Are you?How did B sound like?"Yes"

parta) I am certain.

d) Yes. Please go on.

b) I am doubtfu1.e) Others (please specify):c)

Why do you ask?

Comment: what made you decide Speaker B was as above?

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Native speaker reactions to Japanese EFL learners' speech, looking at intonation as an intention conveyor: A pilot study

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