A Comparative Analysis between Spanish and English Intonation

• Autor(a) principal: Valenzuela, Maria Gabriela
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Lingüística Aplicada (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://www.periodicos.letras.ufmg.br/index.php/rbla/article/view/3884

The aim of this study was to determine the differences and similarities in intonation when producing tag questions, wh-questions, inverted questions, and repetition questions among native English speakers and ESL Spanish speakers. These differences were measured and analyzed with a computer program called Praat.The results have shown significant differences, as well as similarities between these two languages. The implications of this study are that visual technology can provide students the opportunity to practice and recognize different patterns of English intonation, in addition to give them the opportunity to develop autonomy in the process of learning. The program used in this study can also help ESL teachers identify main problems that students have when they produce an unclear sentence.  Key words: Spanish intonation, English intonation, pronunciation, visual technology, autonomy