Exploring the Prosodic and Functional Intricacy of English Intonation for EFL Undergraduates

Abstract

Though English intonation is problematic for a number of EFL university students, currently there are a few studies written on this topic at the local level in particular. Consequently this topic is deemed as a virgin area that is worth more researching. This study strove to explore the prosodic and functional intricacy accompanying the Sudanese undergraduates' production of this phonological feature while speaking or reading aloud. Three hypotheses about the erroneous production of tones, tonicity and tonality have been put forth in order to be tested. The descriptive analytical approach has been adopted as it is relevantly fitting the nature of the present study. In the conduct of collecting the data needed, three tools including an interview with experts and two diagnostic production tests were utilized to collect qualitative and quantitative data from six lecturers in addition to fifty 3rd. year undergraduates majoring in English whom randomly selected from Sudan University of Science and Technology as well as Al-Neelain University during the academic year 2017-2018. Then the data collected have been acoustically and statistically analyzed by using Computer Software Package for Speech Analysis in Phonetics known as PRAAT together with the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The results obtained were tremendously in favour of what had been assumed before. On this basis, a number of recommendations have been suggested , the most notable of which are: listening and speaking skills throughout learning process should be promoted by using effective methodologies that keep learners interactive most of the time and enable them to develop their communicative and linguistic abilities so as to express their intents accurately. Add to the above, the researcher has also recommended that, English language teachers should take into consideration local dialects as a variable that can affect English acquisition. In the light of findings, the researcher suggests that, further research should be conducted to study each of intonation components in isolation for more fresh results.