English Intonation of Wh-type Greetings 研究生:莊舒萍 指導教授: 鍾榮富 報告者: 郭妙珊 學號:NA1C0001

Background and Motivation examination-oriented backgrounds in Taiwan  adopting traditional approaches ( GT, ALA)  ignoring communicative competence  Ts and Ss disregard pragmatic and intonation knowledge.  overemphasizing syntactic knowledge in educational context

Background and Motivation Sparse researchers concentrated on the pragmatic meanings behind the intonation properties. (Niche) Most Taiwanese Ss begin learning English with greetings. How are you and how do you do can be further explored from the pragmatic perspective.

Purpose of the Study examining whether greeting expressions mean differently in accordance with diverse settings 2. identifying intonation pattern properties of pragmatic meanings 3. investigating the gap between EFL textbooks and authentic-like contexts (films), and students’ outcomes so as to know the degree of familiarity of pragmatic meanings and intonations

What? Research Questions Do greeting expressions mean differently in different pragmatic contexts? What intonation properties can help generalize the pragmatic distinction in each greeting expression? 3. To what extent do the college students’ perceptive knowledge and productive performance about pragmatic meanings and intonations differ from textbooks and films?

Literature Review The Summary of Reviewed Studies Researchers Fan (2009) Topic & Methods Pronunciation 1) College Ss 2) Recorded a short story before & after instruction Findings 1) Ss produced very little pitch accent difference 2) Pitch high was more difficult 3) Productive knowledge is more difficult to obtain than perceptual Inspiration 1) To investigate both Ss’ perceptual and productive knowledge 2) To focus on intonation rather than pitch accent

Literature Review The Summary of Reviewed Studies Researchers Hung (2008) Topic & Methods Pragmatics 1) College Ss 2) Conducted listening task 3) Comprehension of conversational implicature Findings Problem in interpreting the listening implicature: 1) implicature with little relevance 2) literal interpretation 3) learners’ assumption Inspiration To investigate the degree of familiarity of meanings and intonations

Literature Review The Summary of Reviewed Studies Researchers Huang (2009) Topic & Methods Pragmatics 1) 20 NSs + 60 Taiwanese Ss ( aged 18-29) 2) video-and- questionnaire Findings 1) EFL learners’ pragmatic knowledge was as well as NSs’. 2) Pragmatics is more important than grammar. Inspiration To adopt more authentic data

Literature Review The Summary of Reviewed Studies Researchers Nadeu and Prieto (2011) Topic & Methods Pitch range pragmatics 1) 20 native speakers of Catalan 2) Perceptual task with increased and decreased pitch range 3) Perceptual task with facial expression Findings 1) Pitch height influence the perception of politeness 2) Contextual information is important Inspiration To analyze pragmatic meanings could first

How? Research Methods  Participants:  52 five-year-system college Ss (2nd graders)  5♂+ 47♀= 52 ( aged 16-17)  Only 4 Ss passed GEPT elementary level.  First language: Mandarin or Southern Min.

Research Methods Target utterances:  how are youΔ ; how do you do □ Data collection: Good-Go Film corpus EFL textbooks (12) Students’ Oral record-ing (31) Checklist Pragmatic meaning 31 Δ(19) 11 □(7) 14 Δ(9) 9 □(7) Intonation pattern

Research Methods Procedures of this research.  Browse abundant textbooks. One  Extract 14 audio files from 9 textbooks (Δ) and code them.  Extract 9 audio files from 7 textbooks (□) and code them.  Browse film-corpus (GoodGo). Two  Record 31 audios from 19 films (Δ) and code them.  Record 11 audios from 7 films (□) and code them. Three  Organize and generalize the data based on pragmatic meanings.  Cut the target utterance into words by applying Praat. Four  Run Huang’s (2005) computational analyzing software to get pitch values. (p0, p50 & p100)  Draw intonation curves by EXCEL and organize them with the Five data of Step Three.  Design the checklist based on the findings. Six  Conduct an oral recording and a perceptual task.  Compare the results of textbooks, films, and students’ oral Seven productive intonation and perceptual outcomes

Research Methods RQ1: Do greeting expressions mean differently in different pragmatic contexts? Instrument / Software Purpose Analysis Textbooks & Good-Go Film-corpus Collect data Based on the contexts ( discourse approach)

Research Methods RQ2: What intonation properties can help generalize the pragmatic distinction in each greeting expression? Instrument / Software Purpose Analysis Praat software Divide the utterances into segments Huang’s software Gain pitch & slope values EXCEL Draw intonation contours Categorize the pitch movement Combine with the results of RQ1

Research Methods RQ3: To what extent do the college students’ perceptive knowledge and productive performance about pragmatic meanings and intonations differ from textbooks and films? Instrument / Software Purpose Analysis Oral recording Gain productive outcomes Same procedure as RQ2 Checklist Gain perceptive outcomes SPSS (frequencies) Compare the orders

Results of How Are You Pragmatic meanings in textbooks:  3 functions: (1) attitudinal (2) indexical (3) discourse  show politeness, passion, higher social status, long time no see, normal greeting Pragmatic meanings in films:  also express surprise, shyness, recognize speakers’ relationship, hi, accosting, asking the progress, asking for reply

Results of How Are You The order from unmarked to more marked  from the pragmatics perspective: (1) normal greeting (2) passion, politeness (greeting back) (3) higher position greet lower one, long time no see (4) politeness (to elders), shyness, surprise, meeting new friends, good relationship (5) hi, accosting, asking the progress, asking for reply

Results of How Are You In terms of intonation pattern:  3 patterns in textbook:  2 more extra patterns in films: 1. People could show their enthusiasm by raising their tone. 2. A falling tone could convey formal or serious attitude. 3. A rising-falling tone could show speakers’ sincerity. 4. A falling-rising tone could be more basic so that it could convey dramatic feelings such as surprise or delight. 5. People who have good relationships tended to use a level tone (not in the textbook).

Results of How Are You The order from unmarked to more marked  from the intonation perspective: (1) rising or falling tone (2) rising-falling tone (3) level tone (4) falling-rising tone

Results of How Are You  Pragmatic meanings (1) normal greeting  College students’ perception:  Pragmatic meanings (1) normal greeting (2) hi, long time no see (3) meeting new friends, passion, good relationship, asking for reply (4) surprise, accosting, higher position greet lower one, politeness (to elders), (5) shyness, asking the progress

Results of How Are You  College students’ perception:  from the intonation perspective: common (1) rising-falling tone (2) falling tone & rising tone & (3) falling-rising tone uncommon (4) level tone

Results of How Do You Do Pragmatic meanings in textbooks:  3 functions: (1) attitudinal (2) indexical (3) discourse  show hi, politeness, passion, social status Pragmatic meanings in films:  also express elegance, normal greeting with response

Results of How Do You Do Pragmatic meanings in textbooks and films: the order from unmarked to more marked (1) hi (2) passion (R-F) (3) be polite (R-F), higher position (F/ L) (4) normal greeting with response, being elegant (-R)

Results of How Do You Do In terms of intonation pattern:  patterns in textbook: rising, falling, rising-falling, falling-rising-falling tone more extra patterns in films: rising, falling, rising-falling, rising-falling-rising, level tone

Results of How Do You Do Intonation patterns in textbooks and films: the order from unmarked to more marked (1) rising tone & rising-falling tone (2) falling tone (3) falling-rising-falling tone (4) rising-falling-rising tone

Results of How Do You Do  Pragmatic meanings  College students’ opinions:  Pragmatic meanings (1) normal greeting with response (2) hi, being polite (3) passion (4) being elegant, higher position

Results of How Do You Do  from the intonation perspective:  College students’ perception:  from the intonation perspective: common (1) rising-falling tone & rising tone (2) falling tone (3) falling-rising-falling tone uncommon (4) level tone (5) rising-falling-rising tone

Results of How Do You Do  College students’ oral production of intonation pattern: common (1) falling-rising-falling tone (2) falling tone (3) rising-falling tone & falling-rising tone uncommon (4) rising-falling-rising tone & rising tone (5) level tone *

Conclusion Film could apply much more contexts and thus convey more pragmatic meanings. A rising tone could convey politeness or passion attitude. A falling tone could convey a feeling of formality, seriousness or politeness. A rising-falling tone shows “ politeness” and “saying hi”. A falling-rising and a level tone share the same meaning “ saying hi” and “normal greeting with a response”. 

Conclusion The outcomes of perceptual task were quite close to norm (textbooks and films). Students’ perceptive knowledge and productive performance were quite inconsistent. (big gap) Teachers should mention the pragmatic meanings and teach students to use variety tones to express their feelings, emotions and intentions. ( adding contexts)

Significance of the Study Pinpointing that the simple greetings could be complex with many meanings and intonation patterns. From pedagogical facet, teachers and students should regard pragmatic meanings behind the intonation properties. Knowing to what extent college students know the greetings and examine whether the results correspond to CAH and SLM.

My Critique The data collection from textbooks and films are abundant, but more students’ recording samples can be included. It is suggest that students do the oral recording within meaningful context instead of single sentence of how are you or how do you do. Native speakers’ perception of pragmatic meaning and intonation pattern of the two target sentences can be involved in this research.