Abstract:

The prosodic cues in a speaker’s verbal output play a vital role in smooth, mutual communication for both parties. Research has shown that native English speakers can use prosodic cues during speech production to convey the intended meaning of an utterance. However, little is known about whether Chinese learners of English as a second language (L2) provide prosodic cues to achieve syntactic disambiguation when producing sentences in their L2. The present study aims to determine the precise prosodic cues that the Chinese learners of L2 English use to disambiguate prepositional phrase attachment (PP-attachment) sentences and whether these cues differ from those used by native English speakers. Under contextualized experimental conditions, Chinese college students who were learning English participated in a constrained task involving the verbal production of ambiguous English sentences with prepositional phrases. The results revealed that the Chinese college students who were learning English could use similar prosodic cues to those used by native English speakers to resolve the ambiguity in PP-attachment sentences. The findings highlight the interaction between prosodic features and implied meaning in English speech production, and suggest ways in which training in English prosody can improve not only Chinese learners’ pronunciation ability, but also their listening and reading proficiency.

Keywords: ambiguity resolution; prepositional phrase attachment; prosodic cues; contextualized setting; prosody-syntax

摘要：

在言语交际过程中，说话人口语表达的韵律线索对交际双方的语言理解发挥着重要作用。为了深入了解中国英语学习者英语口语产出的韵律线索与预期表达含义之间的相关性，本文以中国大学英语学习者为研究对象，采用基于情境的半开放式口语产出任务，考察在特定的情境化实验条件下，被试对英语介词短语挂靠造成的歧义句的朗读任务完成情况。研究结果表明：中国大学英语学习者具有对口语韵律特征与句法结构之间关系的潜在敏感性，能够通过口语的韵律停顿和音高重音实现对英语介词短语动、名词挂靠引起的歧义的消解。本研究结果进一步证实了英语口语韵律特征与预期含义之间的相互关系，凸显了韵律训练在大学英语课堂教学中的重要性，为高校英语听说及阅读教学实践的开展提供了参考建议。

关键词: 歧义消解, 介词短语挂靠, 韵律线索, 情境化语境, 韵律句法