Treball de fi de màster de recerca
Learning of Spanish Intonation by
Mandarin Speakers:
Effects of Observing Pitch Gestures
Chenjie Yuan
Màster:Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada
Edició: 2015-2016
Directors: Dra Pilar Prieto Vives
Any de defensa: 2016
Col⋅lecció: Treballs de fi de màster
Programa oficial de postgrau
“Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada”
Departament de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To write this section is not an easy thing because I have benefited from so many
people during the research and writing process.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Pilar Prieto, who first
introduced me to phonology and linguistics. She is a leading researcher in prosodic
studies and has a rich knowledge of prosody and linguistics. She read every proposal
and draft I wrote and made highly insightful comments. I would have never finished
my TFM without her guidance.
My sincere thanks also go to our GrEP research group. I owed much to Santiago
González Fuentes, whom most of my skills on Praat and SPSS came from. Santiago
was always willing to help me when I met problems with experiments and data
analyses. Also, I would like to thank Nerea Suárez, who along with Santiago,
dedicated much time to the recording of training stimuli for my experiment. Special
thanks go to Florence Baills, who offered a lot of important and useful suggestions
not only on my TFM but also on my life in Barcelona. I also want to thank Anna
Krizia Rico, who gave me much important advice on English writing and helped me
in proofreading the language of my TFM.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to my family in China, especially to my mother, for her
love and understanding. I am also really grateful to my best friend Gato X-F Shao,
who accompanied and encouraged me during my research and writing of TFM, and I
hope that he can successfully finish his TFM as well.
ABSTRACT
Recent studies have demonstrated the positive role of co-speech gestures in enhancing
word memory recall in both first and second language acquisition (e.g., Quinn-Allen,
1995; Tellier, 2008; Kelly et al., 2009), and also the positive effects of using pitch
gestures in the learning of L2 lexical tones (e.g., Jia & Wang, 2013a, b; Morett &
Chang, 2015). However, it is not clear whether co-speech pitch gestures are beneficial
for the learning of L2 intonation. Sixty-four native-Mandarin speakers with basic
level of proficiency in Spanish were asked to learn three Spanish intonation patterns
with a low tone on its nuclear accent (specifically, L*H%, L*HL%, and L*H%). A
pre- and post-tests experiment design was used, where half of the participants were
trained in the control No-Gesture Condition; and the other half with the Gesture
Condition (i.e., pitch gestures marking the nuclear pitch movements). The results
confirm (i) that Mandarin speakers tend to produce a high tone on the nuclear accent
instead of a low tone (e.g., Liu, 2003; Ji & Li, 2009; Ji, 2010; Hong, 2012); and (ii)
that Mandarin speakers in the experimental group produced the target pitch patterns
significantly better than those in control group. Thus, observing pitch gestures does
benefit L2 intonation learning. The findings support the embodied cognition paradigm
and also has some implications for the teaching and learning of L2 intonation.
Keywords: second language acquisition; intonation learning; hand gestures; pitch
gestures; embodied cognition
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................1
2. METHODS.................................................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Participants.......................................................................................................................... 6
2.2 Materials.............................................................................................................................. 6
Figure 2. Target intonation patterns with a L* pitch accent..................................................7
2.3 Procedure............................................................................................................................. 9
Musical ability test............................................................................................................9
Introduction....................................................................................................................... 9
Pre-test.............................................................................................................................10
Training phase................................................................................................................ 11
Post-test........................................................................................................................... 11
3. RESULTS.................................................................................................................................... 12
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS.....................................................................................15
5. REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 18
6. APPENDIXES.............................................................................................................................24
6.1. Appendix I: Questionnaire of language use.................................................................. 24
6.2. Appendix II: Target words and sentences used in the training and testing phases.... 29
6.3. Appendix III: Discourse contexts for target sentences.................................................31
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Waveform, spectrogram, and pitch track of the target interrogative sentence
¿Te gusta esta cama? produced by a native Spanish speaker (left panel) and
a Mandarin basic-level ELE learner (right panel)..........................................3
Figure 2. Target intonation patterns with a L* pitch accent...........................................7
Figure 3. Screenshots of stimuli clips from the production of the target sentence ¿Te
gusta esta cama? In the Gesture Condition (left panel) and in the NoGesture Condition (right panel). The arrows on the left panel represent the
dy nam i c pi tch gestu res perform ed over the target nucl ear pit ch
configuration L*H%.......................................................................................8
Figure 4. Experiment Procedure.....................................................................................9
Figure 5. Screenshots of the introductory video with the sentence ¿Has consultado el
mapa? as an example to explain the target nuclear pitch configuration
L*H% of yes-no questions (left panel) and with the sentence ¿Mi cuaderno
está en la mesa? as a trial task (right panel).................................................10
Figure 6. Mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the two
conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture conditions) in the pre-test and post-test
items (separated by three intonation patterns)..............................................12
Figure 7. Mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the two
conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture conditions) in the pre-test and post-test
items (separated by related and unrelated items).........................................13
Figure 8. Mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the two
conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture conditions) in the pre-test and post-test
items.............................................................................................................14
1. INTRODUCTION
The pronunciation of a second language is extremely difficult to be completely acquired by
L2 learners in their adulthood, even though many of them may perform like native speakers in
other linguistic aspects, such as vocabulary and morphosyntax (e.g., Bongaerts et al., 1997;
Morales, 2008; Mennen & de Leeuw, 2014). Successful L2 pronunciation requires learners to
have a thorough knowledge not only about how to spell every individual phoneme, but also
about the unique L2 prosodic patterns. Much research on L2 acquisition of pronunciation has
shown that segmental errors tend to be less determinative on the listeners’ comprehension of
L2 speech than prosodic errors (e.g., Anderson-Hsieh et al., 1992; Munro & Derwing, 1995;
Trofimovitch & Baker, 2006; Rasier & Hiligsmann, 2007), something which highlights the
importance of prosodic features in L2 learning and use.
Over the past decades, natural co-speech gestures have been proved to be tightly integrated
with speech (e.g., Kendon, 1980, 2004; McNeill, 1992; Goldin-Meadow, 2003; Bernardis &
Gentilucci, 2006; Levinson & Holler, 2014). Gullberg (2006) suggested an important
connection between gestures and L2 acquisition, underlining that gestures provide learners
with additional cues to aid comprehension and overall acquisition. This hypothesis has been
demonstrated by many recent studies showing that gestures play a positive role in enhancing
word memory recall in L2 acquisition (e.g., Quinn-Allen, 1995; Tellier, 2008; Kelly et al.,
2009; Morett & Chang, 2015) and the acquisition of sound patterns (e.g., Hirata et al., 2014;
Kelly, 2014; Chen, 2013).
As for the L2 acquisition of prosody, McCafferty (2006) suggested a relationship between the
use of gestures and emerging second language prosody, which has been empirically
demonstrated in several studies on learning Mandarin Chinese lexical tones. In an
instructional and longitudinal experiment, Jia & Wang (2013a) tested 31 native-English CSL
(Chinese as Second Language) learners’ perception of the four Mandarin tones before and
after a 3-week training session. Sixteen of the learners were taught Mandarin tones with pitch
gestures1 in the training session (experiment group) and the other 15 participants were taught
the same training items without gestures (control group). The results showed that compared
with auditory training, auditory-visual training had a superior effect on tone perception. In a
similar experiment, Jia & Wang (2013b) tested 28 native-English CSL learners’ performance
1
Pitch gestures are a type of metaphorical gestures in which the upward and downward direction
respectively represent high-frequency pitch and low frequency pitch (McNeill, 1992; Morett & Chang,
2015). In Jia & Wang (2013a, b) and Morett & Chang (2015), pitch gestures were temporally integrated
with the pitch variation of Mandarin tones and thus provided more visual information for L2 learners. Due
to the same physical properties, intonation can also be represented with pitch gestures.
1
in producing Mandarin tones after a 3-week training session. Fifteen of them were taught
Mandarin tones with pitch gestures in the training session and the other 13 participants were
taught the same training items without gestures. The results showed that for elementary-level
learners of Mandarin, teachers’ gestures can be successfully used to instantly correct students’
mistakes. Morett & Chang (2015) showed that the use of pitch gestures helped in the
memorization of target words with lexical tones. In their experiment, fifty-seven nativeEnglish CSL students were asked to identify the correct tones as well as the corresponding
meaning of target words both before and after training. In the training session, three blocks of
Mandarin words were taught respectively with (a) pitch gestures, (b) semantic/iconic gestures,
and (c) no gestures. The results showed that pitch gestures helped native-English CSL
learners to identify target Chinese words differing exclusively in lexical tones; conversely,
semantic gestures were proved to negatively influence learners’ performance in word
identification.
Intonation learning is another important topic in the field of L2 prosody acquisition. Studies
over the past decades have shown that L2 learners tend to transfer their prosodic patterns from
L1 to L2 not only in perception (e.g. Flege, 1991; Rochet, 1995; He et al., 2011, 2012) but
also in production (e.g. Cruz-Ferreira, 1989; Braun and Tagliapietra, 2010; Ortega-Llebaria,
2014, 2015). Tonal-language speakers (e.g. Mandarin speakers) have been reported to have
more problems in learning L2 intonation than speakers of intonational languages. One of the
most salient patterns which characterizes the intonation by Mandarin learners of English,
firstly reported by Ji & Li (2009), and later in Ji (2010), Hong (2012) and Barto (2015), is the
systematic production of a H* tone on the target nuclear accents, even when the target pitch
accent is a L* tone. Such a phenomenon was also found in Mandarin learners of other
intonational languages like Spanish, as reported by Liu (2003). An example of this can be
found in Figure 1 with a non-biased information-seeking yes-no question in (1). While native
Castilian-Spanish speakers typically produce a L*H% nuclear configuration (see Hualde &
Prieto, 2015; see Figure 1, left panel), beginner Mandarin learners of Spanish systematically
produce a H* on the nuclear accent (as illustrated in the right panel of Figure 1).
(1)
¿Te
gusta
esta
cama?
me-DAT.
like-VI. 3-SG.
this-DEM
bed-FEM.
Do you like this bed?
2
Sentence in (1) produced by
a male native Spanish
speaker, in which L* is
applied in nuclear accent.
Sentence in (1) produced by
a male native Mandarin
speaker, in which H* is
applied in nuclear accent.
Figure 1. Waveform, spectrogram, and pitch track of
the target interrogative sentence ¿Te gusta esta cama?
produced by a native Spanish speaker (left panel) and
a Mandarin basic-level ELE learner (right panel).
The emergence of such L2 patterns, as documented by Liu (2003), is a result of transfer from
L1 (Mandarin) to L2 (Spanish). Unlike intonational-language speakers, native-Mandarin
speakers rely less on the intonation due to the existence of the lexical tone, which constitutes
the minimal prosodic unit of Mandarin sentences. Such a pattern is easily and naturally
transferred by Mandarin learners of intonation languages to their L2 learning, considering the
word as the minimal prosodic unit in L2 (Liu, 2003). Consequently, Mandarin learners are
blind to the higher-level prosodic groups and systematically treat the lexical stress in
intonational languages as a high tone, in the use of H* pitch accents in all nuclear
configurations1 (Ji, 2010 and Barto, 2015).
The main goal of this investigation is to test whether the use of pitch gestures can favor L2
intonation learning. As far as we know, no empirical research has been carried out to study
the relationship between pitch gestures and emerging L2 intonation patterns. As a result, this
study will be the fist one to assess the effects of visual gestures representing pitch variation
(i.e., pitch gestures) on L2 intonation learning. It is not surprising that pitch gestures can be
thought of as especially helpful in learning intonation, as they can be considered as a way to
visualize the pitch variation in speech and, in some sense, they constitute a type of visual
feedback. In general, visual feedback has been proved to beneficial in the learning of L2
According to Yu (2014), English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese are generally assigned a high tone (i.e.
the first lexical tone H-H in Mandarin) on lexical stress (30.7% for monosyllabic English loanwords (e.g.
jar), 46.5% for disyllabic loanwords with their stress on the first syllable (e.g. sofa), and 60% for disyllabic
loanwords with their stress on the second syllable (e.g., bassoon)).
1
3
intonation. For example, Taniguchi & Abberton (1999) and Shimizu & Taniguchi (2005)
tested Japanese EFL (English as Foreign Language) learners’ production and perception of
English intonation both before and after a longitudinal training session with and without
visualizers (Laryngograph Processor and Sppech Filing System, respectively), and the results
showed that students trained with visual feedback performed significantly better in the posttest. Ostrom (1997) applied the same methods to test Thai EFL learners’ intonation
production before and after a longitudinal training with and without the use of a visualizer
(Visi-Pitch). However, Ostrom (1997) found that there was no significant difference between
the improvement of the control (items taught with speech and hand gestures) and
experimental groups (items taught with interactive visual feedback provided by visualizer, in
addition to speech and hand gestures). However, Ostrom’s (1997) control group was not well
controlled since gestures were used and in this sense the fixed variables in control and
experimental group were not the same. Taking into account the positive role of visual
feedback on L2 intonation learning, we may infer from Ostrom’s (1997) results that hand
gestures, as the interactive visual feedback would also favor the learning of L2 intonation. In
our present study, following up on Jia & Wang (2013a, b) and Morett & Chang (2015), it was
hypothesized that observing co-speech pitch gestures1 would significantly benefit the learning
of L* pitch accents by Mandarin learners of Spanish and improve their performance in
intonation production.
Additionally, we would like to investigate whether musical ability can affect intonation
acquisition by speakers of a tonal language. Neuroscience research studies have shown that,
language (and especially the prosody) shows interesting parallel with music (e.g., Mcmullen
& Saffran, 2004; Brown et al., 2006; Slevc, 2012; Heffner & Slevc, 2015) and musical
training has been proved to be beneficial for L2 acquisition in general (e.g., Lowe, 1995;
Marques et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2007; Chobert & Besson, 2013). However, only few of
them have explored the connection between the musical ability and the acquisition of L2
prosody. Marie et al. (2011) found that musician CSL learners detected both tonal and
segmental variations more accurately than non-musicians. Zhao & Kuhl (2015) also suggested
that musicians exhibited higher sensitivity overall to Mandarin lexical tones. As for the
acquisition of L2 intonation, Lowe (1995) tested the performance of 55 English elementary
learners of French in music and L2 both before and after a 8-week music training session. In
the training session, the control group of 26 received the regular oral-visual drill-type French
Taking into account Goldin-Meadow’s (2003) suggestion that mimicking and observing gestures
contribute differently to the learning, in our study, participants were only allowed to watch the training
stimuli without mimicking.
1
4
lessons while the experimental group of 27, in addition to regular class, received five 15minute music training lessons focusing on the concepts of tonal-rhythmic pattern. Results
from the testing session showed that the experimental group performed significantly better
than the control group in both music and language tests. Marques et al. (2007) tested musician
(i.e. who had at least 14 years of musical training before) and non-musician (i.e. who never
received formal musical training) French adults’ performance in detecting pitch variation in
sentence-final words in Portuguese. Participants were presented with both congruous (spoken
at normal pitch height) and incongruous (pitch was increased by 35% or 120%)
pronunciations of sentence-final words. Results showed that musicians showed more
advantage in detecting pitch deviations, and especially in detecting weak prosodic
incongruities. However, as commented by Fonseca-Mora et al. (2015), it still remains unclear
the connection between musical training and L2 acquisition. Thus in the present study, we are
also interested in the relationship between learners’ musical ability and their L2 intonation
production. Taking into account the positive results of Lowe (1995) and Marques et al. (2007),
our hypothesis is that musician students with a higher musical ability show more advantages
in the speed they learn the production of target L2 intonation. In our case, we predicted that
Mandarin learners with a strong musical ability would perform better in the production of L2
intonation and such an ability would benefit their learning of target intonation patterns in
Spanish as well.
Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate: (i) whether observing pitch gestures
can benefit the learning of target Spanish intonation patterns by Mandarin learners and
improve their performance in intonation production; and (ii) whether the learners’ musical
ability will influence their L2 intonation learning. Given the positive results in previous
studies, our hypotheses for both research questions are positive. In order to test these
hypotheses, we first run a musical ability test for all participants and then carried out a
between-subjects training study, in which we analyzed the participants’ intonation production
both before and after a short training session. While half of them were presented with the
stimuli with no pitch gesture (No-Gesture Condition), the other half were presented with the
stimuli with pitch gestures (Gesture Condition).
5
2. METHODS
2.1 Participants
Eighty-nine basic-level ELE learners from Xi’an International Studies University (Xi’an,
China), who had received a Spanish phonetics course for 8 to 10 weeks1 (M = 9.125 weeks;
SD=0.740; range 8-10), volunteered to participate in our experiment. After inspection of the
language background questionnaire (see Appendix 1), 25 had to be eliminated because they
reported that their mother tongues were other varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin, such
as Wu, Yue, Min, etc. The remaining 64 subjects (Mean Age = 19.797, SD=1.299; range 1823) were native-Mandarin speakers and they claimed using Mandarin most of the time (Mean
= 89.266%, SD = 8.105). The participants were all basic-level ELE learners (M = 9.125
weeks of Spanish; SD = 0.740; range 8-10) and had no significant contact with native-Spanish
speakers. Each participant signed a written consent giving permission to process their
recorded data.
2.2 Materials
Three non-biased nuclear pitch configurations in Castilian-Spanish with a L* on the nuclear
accent: L*L% (statements), L*H% (yes-no questions) and L*HL& (requests) (Hualde &
Prieto, 2015) were chosen as target intonation patterns in our study, as illustrated in Figure 2.
As for nuclear words, following the suggestions by Su & Hu (2011) and Gao & Qin (2012)
that Mandarin learners’ L2 intonation production is affected by the stress position and the
number of syllables in the nuclear word, we proposed to use only disyllabic CVCV structured
words with stress on the first syllable as target nuclear words in our study, as they are clearly
associated with the nuclear pitch configurations and consistent with the syllabic structure of
Mandarin Chinese.
All target words were chosen from the first ten lessons of Modern
Spanish I, textbook used in undergraduate courses of the Spanish language in Chinese
universities (see Appendix 2). Additionally, all words as well as intonation phrases
(statements, yes-no questions and requests) conveyed common everyday meanings and were
easy to understand (see Appendix 2).
According to the Proggrama de enseñanza para cursos básicos de las especialidades de lengua española
de escurlas superiores chinas, all undergraduates of Spanish Philology in Chinese universities receive a
training session of phonetics which last around 8 to 12 weeks. This regulated pedagogic method facilitates
us in finding qualified participants for the experiment.
1
6
Non-biased Statement: L*L%
A low plateau during the last accented syllable
followed by a fall or a low plateau.
Non-biased Yes-no question: L*H%
A low plateau during the last accented syllable
followed by a rise to a high level.
Non-biased Request: L*HL%
A low plateau during the last accented syllable
followed by a rise and then a fall.
Figure 2. Target intonation patterns with a L* pitch accent.
A total of 60 stimuli were prepared on the basis of 5 target words (all nouns) and 3 target
intonation patterns (5 target words × 3 target intonation patterns × 2 native speakers × 2
conditions). Two native Castilian-Spanish speakers (a male and a female) from centralnorthern Spain participated in the video recordings. All videos were recorded in the
Classroom 53.420 of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra with a PMD660 Marantz professional
portable digital video recorder and a Rode NTG2 condenser microphone and later prepared
with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and Audacity 2.1.2. For each Spanish intonation contour, two
training videos were created under two conditions: prominence in speech but not in gesture
(No-Gesture Condition) and prominence in both speech and gesture (Gesture Condition). Two
instructors produced the target Spanish intonation contours ending with the target word, as
illustrated in (1). In order to obtain the most natural pronunciation by both the native speakers
and participants, the method of Discourse Completion Task1 was used (e.g. Blum-Kulka et al.,
1989; Billmyer & Varghese, 2000; Félix-Brasdefer, 2010). For each target intonation
countour, a discourse context was given (see the example in (2) and Appendix 3 for the whole
list of discourse contexts).
(2) Discourse Context for the example sentence in (1): “¿Te gusta esta cama?”:
Chinese version (used in experiment): 想象一下，您想要买一张单人床给您的儿子，
但是宜家里面的单人床种类繁多，让您一时之间不知选择哪张为好。请您从其中
挑一张，然后问问您的丈夫是不是喜欢这张床。
English version: Imagine that you want to buy a single bed for your son, but there are
many choices in IKEA and you cannot decide which one is better. Please choose one of
them and ask your husband if he likes this bed.
Each of the two speakers was videotaped producing the 30 target sentences (5 target words ×
The Discourse Completion Task is an inductive method, has been successfully applied in linguistic
research for many years, and also in prosodic studies (e.g., Prieto & Roseano, 2010).
1
7
3 target intonation patterns × 2 conditions, namely the No-Gesture and Gesture Conditions).
In the No-Gesture Condition, the instructors produced the target intonation patterns only in
speech and without pitch gestures; as illustrated in Figure 3 (right panel); while in Gesture
Condition, the same instructors produced the target intonation patterns with associated pitch
gestures, as illustrated in Figure 3 (left panel).
Sentence in (1) produced by
a male instructor under
Gesture Condition.
Sentence in (1) produced by
a male instructor under NoGesture Condition.
Figure 3. Screenshots of stimuli clips from the production of the target
sentence ¿Te gusta esta cama? In the Gesture Condition (left panel) and
in the No-Gesture Condition (right panel). The arrows on the left panel
represent the dynamic pitch gestures performed over the target nuclear
pitch configuration L*H%.
To ensure that the speech was similar across the Gesture and No-Gesture conditions,
instructors were asked to first produce the target sentence in the Gesture Condition and right
after, produce the same sentence under the No-Gesture Condition.
8
2.3 Procedure
The experiment consisted of five phrases, namely, the musical ability test, a common
introduction to Spanish intonation, the pre-test, the between-subjects training session and the
post-test (see Figure 4). The whole experiment was run in a single day and lasted
approximately 45 minutes. It was conducted in two multimodal classrooms SA210 and
SA211 at Xi’an International Studies University with two groups of 32 students.
Musical
test
Stimuli under
Gesture Condition
Introduction
Pre-test
Post-test
Stimuli under NoGesture Condition
Training Phase
Figure 4. Experiment Procedure.
Musical ability test
The musical ability test consisted of 2 sub-tests of tasks selected from the PROMS (Profile of
Music Perception Skills, as suggested by Law & Zentner, 2012) focusing on melody and pitch,
two properties closely related to our study. In the two tests, participants were first displayed a
reference sound clip twice and then a testing audio file for one time through AKG K27 Mk II
headphones, and after that, they were asked to discriminate whether the testing audio was
identical to the reference sound clip. For each task, five choices were given: Definitely same,
Probably same, I don’t know, Probably different, Definitely different. The musical test lasted
20 minutes and the final scores were sent to the researchers individually by email after
finishing the test.
Introduction
The introduction phase was common to all participants and contained an explanation of the
experimental procedure (presented in two PowerPoint slides), as well as some introduction to
intonation and to the target intonation patterns that they would have to learn (namely,
statements, yes-no questions and requests). In order to ensure that the timing of the
introduction phase was the same for all participants, a total of 15 slides were compiled as a
15-minute video displayed which the participants listened to using AKG K27 Mk II
9
headphones.
The introductory video contained a short explanation of each of the three target Spanish
intonation contours that the participants will need to learn. Each intonation phrase was
accompanied with an example sentence, its corresponding discourse context, as well as the
pronunciation by a native speaker (as exemplified in the left panel of Figure 5). After that, a
total of three warm-up trials presenting the discourse contexts followed by their
corresponding answers (i.e., answer sentences recorded by the same native speaker) were
given so that participants could get more familiar with the testing tasks. Participants were
asked to image that they were faced with the situations described in the discourse contexts and
then respond by themselves (see the right panel of Figure 5). Afterwards, recordings by native
speaker were played twice so that they can check and compare their answers with the native
ones.
Figure 5. Screenshots of the introductory video with the sentence ¿Has
consultado el mapa? as an example to explain the target nuclear pitch
configuration L*H% of yes-no questions (left panel) and with the
sentence ¿Mi cuaderno está en la mesa? as a trial task (right panel).
Pre-test
The pre-test phrase consisted of a set of 15 discourse completion tasks (5 target words × 3
intonation patterns). Each task contained a discourse context (as in (2) and the trail task in
Figure 5) written in Chinese and a descriptive picture corresponding to the context (as in the
trial task in Figure 5). Target words were given on the top-right corner of corresponding slides
as well, as “mesa” in the right panel of Figure 5. Participants were instructed to use this word
as the last word in their response. For each task, participants were given a maximum of 60
seconds (as illustrated in the right panel of Figure 5). Those who could record their responses
before the time limit could jump to the next task by clicking on the screen. The responses of
each participants were individually recorded through a set of AKG C417 PP microphones.
10
Training phase
In the training phase, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two between-subjects
groups. Participants in the experimental group were presented with a total of 15 trials under
the Gesture Condition and were reminded to pay attention to the gestures used by instructors;
by contrast, participants in the control group were presented with the 15 training stimuli under
the No-Gesture Condition. The 15 target intonation contours were presented twice, first
pronounced by a female instructor and then by a male instructor. For each target sentence,
participants saw it firstly written in Spanish on the screen for 3 seconds followed by two
training clips, in which the two instructors uttered the same intonation phrase respectively.
To avoid primacy and recency effects on memory caused by the displaying order, target
sentences were presented in randomized order and in blocks of three. The randomization
followed the following criteria: (i) repeated intonation patterns should not appear within the
same block; (ii) the same intonation patterns should not be adjacent to each other across
blocks; (iii) the sequence order of one block should be different from its neighboring blocks;
(iv) the same target words should not be put together both within and across blocks; (v) one
target word’s left neighbor should be different from its right neighbor both within and across
blocks. The same method was also applied to randomize the order of tasks in testing sessions.
The total time for the training session was 3 minutes and 17 seconds. After that, participants
were asked to evaluate themselves in the pre-test using a 1-10 evaluation scale in which “1”
represents “the worst produced pattern” whereas “10” represents “the best produced pattern”.
A 5-minute break followed by the self-evaluation.
Post-test
To test the participants’ learning results, the post-test phrase included 15 new items which
were called “unrelated items”, besides the 15 Discourse Completion Tasks appeared in the
pre-test, which were called “related items”. As in the pre-test, participants were asked to
follow the instructions (i.e. a discourse context and a descriptive picture) and then respond to
the situation using the target words given on the screen. The responses of each of the
participants was individually recorded through a set of AKG C417 PP microphones.
11
3. RESULTS
A total of 2880 intonation contours (45 sentences (15 in the pre-test and 30 in the post-test) ×
64 participants) were prosodically annotated following the Spanish ToBI labeling system
(Estebas-Vilaplana, 2008; Hualde & Prieto, 2015). The rating was focused on the target pitch
accent of the nuclear configuration (namely, L*H%, L*HL%, and L*H%): if the participants
produced a L* pitch accent, it was rated as correct and marked with “1”, whereas those
wrongly produced with a H* pitch accent were marked with “0”. The boundary tones were
not taken into account. The whole data were submitted to a Generalized Linear Mixed Model
(GLMM), using IBM SPSS Statistics 23. The dependent variable was the accuracy of
intonation contours in both tests. The fixed factors were Condition (two levels, Gesture vs.
No-Gesture), Test (two levels, pre-test and post-test), Item Type (three levels, Related items
in the pre-test, Related items in the post-test and Unrelated items in the post-test), Pattern
(three levels, Statement, Question and Request), as well as their interactions. Sex and Age
were set as random factors.
Figure 6. Mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the
two conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture conditions) in the pre-test and
post-test items.
The results of the GLMM analyses showed a main effect of Condition (F(1, 2862) = 54.150, p
< 0.001), confirming that participants trained with gestures performed mych better; as well as
a main effect of Test (F(1, 2862) = 173.423, p < 0.001), indicating that participants improved
after watching the training stimuli. No interaction between Condition and Test was reported.
The pairwise comparison showed that the Condition × Test interaction was significant in the
post-test (F(1, 2862) = 130.140, p < 0.001), but not in pre-test (F(1, 2862) = 0.484, p = 0.487).
This further supported our hypothesis on the role of pitch gestures since the participants
12
showed no group difference in the pre-test, but after the training phase, those in the
experimental group performed significantly much better than those in the control group.
Figure 6 shows the mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the two
conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture) in the pre-test and post-test items.
The results of the GLMM analyses also revealed a main effect of Pattern (F(2, 2862) = 92.876,
p < 0.001), which suggested that the difficulty of each intonation pattern was not the same for
Mandarin basic ELE learners. No interactions involving Pattern were reported. The pairwise
comparison showed (i) a significant effect of Condition in each intonation pattern: Statement,
F(1, 2862) = 14.154, p < 0.001; Question, F(1, 2862) = 27.895, p < 0.001; Request, F(1, 2862)
= 15.756, p < 0.001; and (ii) a significant of two-way interaction between Condition and
Pattern, but only in the post-test: Statement, F(1, 2862) = 16.927, p < 0.001; Question, F(1,
2862) = 78.632; Request, F(1, 2862) = 49.992, p < 0.001. These two facts confirmed that
participants in the experiment group performed much better in producing each intonation
pattern after the training phrase. Figure 7
illustrates the mean proportion of correctly
produced L* pitch accents in the two conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture) in the pre-test and
post-test items, separated by three intonation patterns.
Figure 7. Mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the
two conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture conditions) in the pre-test and
post-test items (separated by three intonation patterns).
Additionally, with regard to the potential difference between related and unrelated items, a
significant main effect of Item Type was reported (F(1, 2862) = 5.256, p = 0.22). No
interactions involving Item Type were found. The pairwise comparison analyses revealed a
significant effect of Condition on both related (F(1, 2862) = 9.876, p = 0.002) and unrelated
items (P(1, 2862) = 50.748, p < 0.001) in the post-test, confirming that participants trained
13
with pitch gestures performed much better not only in learned items but also in new items.
Figure 8 shows the proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the two conditions
(Gesture vs. No-Gesture) in the pre-test and post-test items, separated by related and unrelated
items.
Figure 8. Mean proportion of correctly produced L* pitch accents in the
two conditions (Gesture vs. No-Gesture conditions) in the pre-test and
post-test items (separated by related and unrelated items).
Finally, to test the relationship between musical ability and the intonation performance of the
participants, a correlation analysis was run with the scores of musical ability test (melody and
pitch) and the number of correct produced intonation patterns in both pre- and post-tests. The
results showed that the two types of musical abilities were correlated (r = 0.463, p < 0.001),
and that pitch ability was correlated with both pre-test (r = 0.310, p < 0.001) and post-test
scores (r = 0.516, p < 0.001); finally, melody ability only correlated with Post-test (r = 0.527,
p < 0.001) and nearly with the pre-test (r = 0.242, p = 0.054).
14
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The present study examined whether pitch gestures could enhance Mandarin basic ELE
learners’ production of Spanish intonation, especially in learning the L* pitch accents in
several Spanish intonation patterns. The results of a short training with pitch gestures showed
a significant gain in performance in the participants who underwent training with pitch
gestures. Even though participants in both conditions improved after watching the training
videos, those in the Gesture Condition improved significantly more than those in the NoGesture Condition. The results thus demonstrate that metaphorical gestures signaling pitch
movements have the potential of aiding Mandarin basic ELE speakers in learning the Spanish
melodies. Thus the results of this study extend recent results reported by Jia & Wang (2013a,
b) and Morett & Chang (2015), confirming the positive role of pitch gestures not only in the
learning of lexical tones in a tone language but also in the learning of L2 intonation by tonallanguage speakers. We may safely conclude that gestures conveying spoken pitch play a
positive role in learning L2 prosody in general.
Importantly, there were no significant differences between the intonation performance in the
post-test between related and unrelated items, both in the Gesture and the No-Gesture
conditions, something which suggests that the improvement of participants after training
cannot be attributed to memorization but rather that it is easily generalized to new items and
fosters the prosodic learning.
Interestingly, such positive effects of gestures were not systematically obtained in all three
types of pitch configurations, since pitch gestures aided significantly in the learning of the
L*H% (i.e., yes-no questions) and the L*HL% (i.e., requests) intonation patterns, but not
overtly benefit the learning of L*L% (i.e., statements). The results seem to suggest a difficulty
hierarchy of learning Spanish intonation for Mandarin ELE learners: Statement > Yes-no
Question > Request1, in which the statements are the most difficult intonation phrases,
followed by yes-no questions and then requests. One possible explanation could be that the
hierarchy is related to the different degree of markedness of these three intonation patterns, in
which Request is the most marked one and best perceived by learners, whereas Statement is
the least marked pattern and worst perceived. This can also be corroborated by the data of
participants’ self evaluation in the pre-test since most participants were very content with their
production of statements in the pre-test (M = 8.312/10, SD = 0.896) after watching the
training stimuli, but not with requests (M = 1.656/10, SD = 0.865). This means that most of
1
The symbol “>” means that the intonation pattern on the left is more difficult than the right one.
15
them did perceive the difference of requests produced respectively by native speakers (i.e.,
L*HL%) and themselves (i.e., H*L%, M = 0.845, SD = 0.299), but that did not happen in
perceiving the difference of native and L2 patterns of statements (i.e. L1: L*L% vs. L2:
H*L%, M = 0.735, SD = 0.245), and the perception of L* pitch accents of yes/no questions
(i.e. L1: L*H% vs. L2: H*H%, M = 0.545, SD = 0.414) lied somewhere between. The
markedness as well as its implied difficulty of perception, in this sense, is directly correlated
with the number of H-L tone contrast in these intonation patterns, since there are two H-L
tone contrasts in the Request pattern compared to one such contrast in Yes/no Question
pattern and none in Statement pattern. We may infer from these observations that the contrast
between a high tone and a low tone is more salient than the contrast between two adjacent H
tones or L tones; and as a result, intonation patterns with more H-L tone contrasts (e.g.,
requests) are aurally more impressive and much easier to be fully perceived by L2 learners.
Cortés Moreno (1998, 2004) tested Chinese ELE learners’ intonation production and
proposed a totally inverse hierarchy of difficulty: Imperative (Command and Request) >
Question (Wh- Question > Yes/no Question) > Statement. The contradiction between Cortés
Moreno (1998, 2004) and our present study could be partially attributed to the difference in
the L1 of learner groups, since in Cortés Moreno (1998, 2004), Chinese ELE learners were
Taiwanese and Mandarin bilinguals 1 and thus, it’s difficult to control the L1 effect. In the
present study, bilinguals were picked out and all participants were Mandarin-dominant
speakers without any previous knowledge on other Chinese languages. Moreover, we may
notice that some L2 Spanish intonation patterns produced by Chinese speakers are also
present in Spanish but with different pragmatic meanings. For example, the H*L%, H*H%
pattern is also used by native Castilian-Spanish speakers to form statements and yes/no
questions but only in cases when the nuclear words are put in focus positions. In such cases,
raters may encounter difficulties when they need to decide which one is correct if they are not
familiar with the speech context and the purpose of the whole experiment. The experiment
design of the present study, notably, was more straightforward than that of Cortés Moreno
(1998, 2004) and thus, the results should be more reliable.
Moreover, as for the relationship between the musical ability and the emerging L2 intonation
patterns, the results clearly showed that they were tightly correlated and learners with a strong
musical ability (especially in detecting the difference of pitch change) generally performed
As suggested by Liu (2003), the percentage of the usage of Mandarin and Taiwanese by native Taiwanese
people were respectively 90% and 80%, and many of them can even speak Hakka, another Chinese
language.
1
16
much better in intonation production. This finding directly support Marques et al.’s (2007)
claim that learners’ ability to detect pitch variation in L2 speech is dependent on the their
musical talent. Therefore, a short-term musical training with the purpose to enhance L2
learners’ musical ability, in addition to aiding the L2 acquisition in general (Lowe, 1995), is
also predicted to be helpful for L2 intonation learning.
To conclude, the present study demonstrates that a short training with pitch gestures does help
Mandarin basic-level ELE learners to grasp a set of target intonation contours, and more
specifically, the learning of the L* pitch accents, which are reported as one of the most
difficult prosodic feature for Mandarin learners of Spanish. Additionally, musical ability is
proved to correlate with the learning process of intonation. These findings not only support
the embodied cognition and prosody-gesture integration theories but also have some
implications for the teaching of L2 intonation, such as the promotion of the use of audiovisual
pitch gestures and musical training in the language classroom. Even though different visual
supportive strategies have been proposed for the learning of L2 prosody (e.g., Visi-Pitch,
Praat, etc.), it seem that the use of co-speech gestures can even outperform the effectiveness
of such supportive tools.
17
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23
6. APPENDIXES
6.1. Appendix I: Questionnaire of language use
QDestionari d’usos lingDístics 语言使用情况调查
Nom i cognoms (姓名) ..................... Telèfon de contacte (联系电话) ...........................
Adreça electrònica (电子邮箱) ........................................................................................
Edat (年龄) ................. Lloc de naixement (出生地)........................................................
Lloc de residència actual (现居地)...................................................................................
Si no és el mateix lloc on vas néixer, quant temps fa que hi vius?
(如果不是同一地方，你在现居地居住了多了？）.....................................................
Lloc de naixement del pare (父亲出生地)........................................................................
Lloc de naixement dels avis paterns (祖父母出生地)......................................................
Lloc de naixement de la mare (母亲出生地)....................................................................
Lloc de naixement dels avis materns (外祖父母出生地).................................................
Formació musical (音乐训练) ○ Sí, .......... any(s)
○ No
Quan vas començar a parlar en castellà? (你是何时开始说/学习西班牙语的？)..........
a) Llengua (castellà, català, altres) que fas servir per comunicar-te amb:
你和下列亲属或同伴在说话过程中使用何种语言（汉语、西班牙语、英语等）：
pare (父亲): mare (母亲): germans (兄弟姐妹):
parella (男/女友): companys de feina (同学):
b) Quines altres llengDes saps (parles, llegeixes o escrius)?
你还会什么其他语言（用以交流、阅读还是写作）？
...........................................................................................................................................
Comprensió auditiva en les llengDes segDents:
觉得自己以下语言的听力理解能力如何：
Anglès 英语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Castellà 西语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
24
Altres llengDes 其他语言:
............
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Comprensió escrita en les llengDes segDents:
觉得自己以下语言的阅读理解能力如何：
Anglès 英语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Castellà 西语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Altres llengDes 其他语言:
............
○ perfecte 优秀
Com creus que parles les llengDes segDents:
觉得自己以下语言的口语交流能力如何：
Anglès 英语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Castellà 西语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Altres llengDes 其他语言:
............
○ perfecte 优秀
Com creus que pronuncies les llengDes segDents:
觉得自己以下语言的语音和语调如何：
Anglès 英语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Castellà 西语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Altres llengDes 其他语言:
............
○ perfecte 优秀
Com creus que escrius en les llengDes segDents:
觉得自己以下语言的写作能力如何：
Anglès 英语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Castellà 西语
○ perfecte 优秀
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
○ bona 良好
○ no gaire bona 一般
○ dolenta 基础
Altres llengDes 其他语言:
............
○ perfecte 优秀
En quina llengua et sents més còmode?
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更习惯使用以下哪种语言？
○ xinès 汉语
○ castellà 西语
○ anglès 英语
○ altres 其他 ............
Si tinguessis un animal de companyia, en quina llengua li parlaries?
如果你有个宠物，你遛它的时候会说什么语言？
○ xinès 汉语
○ castellà 西语
○ anglès 英语
○ altres 其他 ............
Més o menys, digues el percentatge d’ús que feies d’aquestes llengDes quan eres petit:
你小时候和别人交流的时候，使用以下语言的比例大概如何：
○ xinès 汉语
○ castellà 西语
○ anglès 英语
○ altres 其他 ............
......%
......%
......%
......%
I ara?
你现在和别人交流的时候，使用以下语言的比例大概如何：
○ xinès 汉语
○ castellà 西语
○ anglès 英语
○ altres 其他 ............
......%
......%
......%
......%
......................................................................................
(Signatura, 签名)
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6.2. Appendix II: Target words and sentences used in the training and testing phases
No.
Target Sentence
Target Word
(Statement, Yes-no question and Request)
·Ahora no estoy en casa. “Now, I am not at home.”
1
casa, “home”
·¿Tus padres están en casa? “Are you parents at home?”
·¡Vente a mi casa! “Come to my home!”
·La puse en tu cama. “I put it on your bed.”
2
cama, “bed”
·¿Te gusta esta cama? “Do you like this bed?”
·¡Vamos a la cama! “Let’s go to bed!”
·No conozco la marca de este coche. “I don’t know the brand of this car.”
3
coche, “car”
·¿Conoces la marca de este coche? “Do you know the brand of this car?”
·¡Préstame tu coche! “Lend me your car!”
·Yo prefiero la silla. “I prefer the chair.”
4
silla, “chair”
·¿Es muy cara esta silla? “Is the chair very expensive?”
·¡Cómprame la silla! “Buy me this chair!”
Test
Pre- and PostTests
Pre- and PostTests
Pre- and PostTests
Pre- and PostTests
·Todas las mañanas, desayuno un vaso de leche. “Every morning, I take a glass of
5
leche, “milk”
milk.”
·¿Te has acabado la leche? “Have you finished the milk?”
Pre- and PostTests
·¡Prueba esta leche! “Try this milk!”
29
·Yo prefiero en vaso. “I prefer in glass.”
6
vaso, “glass”
·¿Ya has añadido el azúcar en el vaso? “Have you added sugar in the glass?”
Post-test
·¡Cómprame el vaso! “Buy me the glass!”
·Voy a la fiesta después de la cena. “I will go to the party after dinner.”
7
cena, “dinner”
·¿Puedo regresar después de la cena? “Can I return home after dinner?”
Post-test
·¡Vente a la cena! “Come to the dinner!”
·Todos mis familiares están en esta foto. “All my family are in this photo.”
8
foto, “photo”
·¿Puedes enviarme la foto? “Can you send me the photo?”
Post-test
·¡Déjame ver su foto! “Let me have a look on his photo!”
·He perdido la llave. “I have lost the key.”
9
llave, “key”
·¿Has devuelto la llave? “Have you returned the key?”
Post-test
·¡Préstame tu llave! “Lend me your key!”
·He añadido un poco de pimienta a la sopa. “I have added some pepper in the soup.”
10
sopa, “soup”
·¿Le has echado azúcar a la sopa? “Have you put sugar in the soup?”
Post-test
·¡Cómprame esa sopa! “Buy me that soup!”
30
6.3. Appendix III: Discourse contexts for target sentences
Intonation Pattern
1
Discourse Context
2
Statement
Ahora no estoy en casa. “Now, I am not at home.”
Imagine that last week, you bought two books in Amazons and the delivery is due today. The courier calls you
this morning to make sure that you are at home. Please tell him that right now you are not at home.
La puse en tu cama. “I put it on your bed.”
Imagine that your daughter bought a new shirt in Zara yesterday. She left it at home and went to an all-night bar
Discourse Context
with her friends. When she returned home this morning, she cannot found her new shirt and asked you whether
you have seen it yesterday. Please tell her that you put it on her bed.
3
No conozco la marca de este coche. “I don’t know the brand of this car.”
Imagine that now you are in an international automotive exhibition with your colleagues and there are many new
Discourse Context
brands that all of you haven't seen before. Some of them ask you if you know a specific car brand. Please answer
him that you do not know that car brand.
4
Yo prefiero la silla. “I prefer the chair.”
Imagine that you had an operation on your leg last week and the doctor requested that you should not sit on soft
Discourse Context
furniture. Now you and your friend Mary are visiting your professor Tom and he invites you to take a seat in his
saloon. Please tell him that you prefer the chair.
31
5
Todas las mañanas, desayuno un vaso de leche. “Every morning, I take a glass of milk.”
Imagine that you are interviewed in a program called “Health Diet” conducted by the university radio and you
Discourse Context
are asked what types of food you consume everyday. Please answer them that every morning you take a glass of
milk.
6
Discourse Context
7
Discourse Context
8
Discourse Context
9
Discourse Context
Yo prefiero en vaso. “I prefer in glass.”
Imagine that your friend Tom invites you to take some coffee and the waiter asks you if you want your coffee in
glass or in cup. Please tell him that you prefer in glass.
Voy a la fiesta después de la cena. “I will go to the party after dinner.”
Imagine that your friends will go to a music party tonight and they ask you if you want to join them. Please tell
them that you will go to the party after dinner.
Mira, todos mis familiares están en esta foto. “All my family are in this photo.”
Imagine that your new friend Anna visits you this morning and she is attracted by the family photo on the wall.
Please tell her that all of your family members are in this photo.
He perdido la llave. “I have lost the key.”
Imagine that when you want to open the door of your house, you cannot find the key in your bag. But your
mother is still working and there is no one at home who can open the door for you. Please call your mother and
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tell her that you have lost the key.
10
He añadido un poco de pimienta a la sopa. “I have added some pepper in the soup.”
Imagine that tonight you have a birthday party at home. Your friends comment that the soup you prepared is a
Discourse Context
little bit spicy and they wonder if you added some pepper in the soup. Please tell them that you added pepper in
the soup.
Intonation Pattern
1
Discourse Context
2
Discourse Context
3
Discourse Context
Yes/no Question
¿Tus padres están en casa? “Are you parents at home?”
Imagine that you want to organize a meeting and you need help from Charles and his wife Ingrid. You try to call
them but their child Tom picks up the telephone. Please ask Tom if his parents are at home.
¿Te gusta esta cama? “Do you like this bed?”
Imagine that you want to buy a single bed for your son, but there are many choices in IKEA and you cannot
decide which one is better. Please choose one of them and ask your husband if he likes this bed.
¿Conoces la marca de este coche? “Do you know the brand of this car?”
Imagine that now you are participating in an international automotive exhibition with your colleagues and there
are many new brands that you haven't seen before. Please ask your colleague Tom to see if he knows a specific
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car brand.
4
Discourse Context
5
¿Es muy cara esta silla? “Is the chair very expensive?”
Imagine that your friend Tom tells you that he bought a leather chair in IKEA yesterday.. Please ask him if the
chair is very expensive.
¿Te has acabado la leche? “Have you finished the milk?”
Imagine that your daughter always skips the breakfast and goes to school in a hurry. This morning you prepare a
Discourse Context
glass of milk for her but she drinks it very quickly and says goodbye to you. Please ask her if she has finished the
milk.
6
¿Ya has añadido el azúcar en el vaso? “Have you added sugar in the glass?”
Imagine that you are preparing cakes with your sister for tomorrow's party. But you leave for a while and you
Discourse Context
don't know if she has added sugar in the glass during your absence. Please ask her if she has added sugar in the
glass.
7
¿Puedo regresar después de la cena? “Can I return home after dinner?”
Imagine that an old friend of your parents wants to invite your family for dinner tonight. However, you caught a
Discourse Context
cold yesterday and you want to return home earlier after dinner. Please ask your parents if you can return home
after dinner.
34
8
Discourse Context
9
Discourse Context
10
Discourse Context
¿Me puedes enviar la foto? “Can you send me the foto?”
Imagine that your professor gave you many reference links in class and your classmate Sam took a photo of them
with his mobile. Please call him and ask him if he can send you the photo.
¿Has devuelto la llave? “Have you returned the key?”
Imagine that this morning you carried out some experiments in the laboratory and after that, you asked your
partner Sam to return the key to the department. Please call him to make sure if he has returned the key.
¿Le has echado azúcar a la sopa? “Have you put sugar in the soup?”
Imagine that you are invited to your friend Sam's birthday party and he prepared a cup of sweet soup for
everyone. Please ask him if he has added sugar in the soup.
Intonation Pattern
1
Request
¡Vente a mi casa! “Come to my home!”
Imagine that you have invited your friends to your birthday party, but one of them calls you this morning and
Discourse Context
tells you that he may not be able to come because he still has not finished the homework due tomorrow. Please
request him kindly to come to your home.
2
¡Vamos a la cama! “Let’s go to bed!”
35
Discourse Context
3
Imagine that you and your girlfriend are watching a soap movie at home. It's very late and you are so bored and
sleepy. However, your girlfriend is still attracted by the movie. Please request her kindly to go to bed.
¡Préstame tu coche! “Lend me your car!”
Imagine that you want to take your children for an outing, but your car broke down a few days ago and is still
Discourse Context
being repaired. As a result, you call your friend Emma to see if she can lend her car to you for one day, but she is
not so willing. Please request her kindly to lend you her car.
4
Discourse Context
5
¡Cómpreme la silla! “Buy me this chair!”
Imagine that you want to buy a leather chair for your bedroom and you find one in IKEA by chance. However,
the leather chair is so expensive that your father is not so willing to buy it. Please beg him to buy the chair.
¡Prueba esta leche! “Try this milk!”
Imagine that you are traveling in Tibet with your friend Pepe. A waiter serves you a glass of tibetan milk in hotel
Discourse Context
this morning. It smells odd, but you find it very delicious after drinking it. Pepe doesn't dare to try it, but you
really want him to taste it. Please request him kindly to try the milk.
6
Discourse Context
¡Cómprame el vaso! “Buy me the glass!”
Imagine that Christmas is approaching and your mother promises you to buy you a present. You are attracted by
a beautiful glass in a gift shop in the center. Please beg your mother to buy you the glass.
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7
¡Vente a la cena! “Come to the dinner!”
Imagine that you have invited your friends Tom, Mary and Luis for dinner, but Tom calls you this morning and
Discourse Context
tells you that he may not be able to come because he still has not finished the homework which is due tomorrow.
Please request him to come to the dinner.
8
¡Déjame ver su foto! “Let me have a look on his foto!”
Imagine that your friend Mary who has been single for several years tells you that recently she has fallen in love
Discourse Context
with an American boy. She is very shy and does not want to show you her boyfriend’s photo. Please request her
to show you his photo.
9
¡Préstame tu llave! “Lend me your key!”
Imagine that you are renting a house with your friend Sam in Barcelona and you have lost the key for several
Discourse Context
times. Today you lost it again and you asked Sam if he can lend you his key to make a copy. Sam is afraid of
that you would lose his key and doesn’t want to give it to you. Please beg him kindly to lend you his key.
10
¡Cómprame esa sopa! “Buy me that soup!”
Imagine that you are eating with your parents in a Michelin restaurant and you want to taste the most well-sold
Discourse Context
soup of the restaurant. However, it's very expensive and your mother does not want to order it. Please beg your
mother to buy you the soup.
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