Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:57:30.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A CROSSLINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF EMOTIONAL INTONATION

INFLUENCE OF THE PITCH MODULATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2021

Christine MoonKyoung Cho Open the ORCID record for Christine MoonKyoung Cho [Opens in a new window]  and
Jean-Marc Dewaele Open the ORCID record for Jean-Marc Dewaele [Opens in a new window]
Christine MoonKyoung Cho*
Affiliation:
Ohio University
Jean-Marc Dewaele
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christine MoonKyoung Cho, Department of Linguistics, Ohio University, Athens, OH45701. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Pitch perception plays a more important role in emotional communication in English than in Korean. Interpreting the semantic aspects of pitch levels therefore presents a challenge for Korean learners of English. This study investigated how 49 Korean learners of English perceived 20 English emotional utterances. Participants were asked to complete a congruency task in which they indicated whether the category of the semantic valence was congruent with the intonation type. They also described each emotional utterance by providing an adjective. The task results of Korean participants were compared with those of a control group of 49 Anglo-American students. Statistical analyses revealed that the incongruence between the semantic meaning and the intonation type interfered with American participants’ performance more than Korean participants. The adjective task results also showed that American participants were more attuned to the interplay between the semantic meaning and the intonation type than Korean participants.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , September 2021 , pp. 870 - 895
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Altarriba, J., & Canary, T. M. (2004). The influence of emotional arousal on affective priming in monolingual and bilingual speakers. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25, 248–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altarriba, J., & Santiago-Rivera, A. L. (1994). Current perspectives on using linguistic and cultural factors in counseling the Hispanic client. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 25, 388–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayçiçegi, A., & Harris, C. (2004). Bilinguals’ recall and recognition of emotion words. Cognition and Emotion, 18, 977–987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayçiçegi-Dinn, A., & Caldwell-Harris, C. (2009). Emotion-memory effects in bilingual speaker: A level-of-processing approach. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 291–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bachorowski, J., & Owren, M. J. (1995). Vocal expression of emotion: Acoustic properties of speech are associated with emotional intensity and context. Psychological Science, 6, 219–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batty, M., & Taylor, M. J. (2003). Early processing of the six basic facial emotional expressions. Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 613–620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Beckman, M. E., & Pierrehumbert, J. (1986). Intonational structure in Japanese and English. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 255–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boersma, P., & Kovacic, G. (2006). Spectral characteristics of three styles of Croatian folk singing. Journal of Acoustic Society of America, 119, 1805–1816.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2019). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program], version 6.0.56. Retrieved June 20, 2019 from http://www.praat.org/.Google Scholar
Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (2010). Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW): Instruction manual and affective ratings (Technical report C-2). University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.Google Scholar
Brosch, T., Pourtois, G., & Sander, D. (2010). The perception and categorisation of emotional stimuli: A review. Cognition and Emotion, 24, 377–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, R. (1984). The communication of emotion. Guilford.Google Scholar
Bulut, M., & Narayanan, S. (2008). On the robustness of overall F0-only modifications to the perception of emotions in speech. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 4547–4558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celce-Murcia, M., Dörnyei, Z., & Thurrel, S. (1995). Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated model with content specifications. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 6, 5–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheang, H. S., & Pell, M. D. (2008). The sound of sarcasm. Speech Communication, 50, 366–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cho, C. M. (2018). An investigation of Korean learners’ difficulties in using English intonation to express emotion: Perception and production (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Degner, J., Doycheva, C., & Wentura, D. (2012). It matters how much you talk: On the automaticity of affective connotations of first and second language words. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 181–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2004). The emotional force of swear words and taboo words in the speech of multilinguals. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25, 204–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2006). Expressing anger in multiple languages. In Pavlenko, A. (Ed.), Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression, and representation (pp. 118–151). Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2008). The emotional weight of “I love you” in multilinguals’ languages. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 1753–1780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2013). Emotions in multiple languages (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2016). Thirty shades of offensiveness: L1 and LX English users’ understanding, perception and self-reported use of negative emotion-laden words. Journal of Pragmatics, 94, 112–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2018a). Pragmatic challenges in the communication of emotions in intercultural couples. Intercultural Pragmatics, 15, 29–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2018b). Glimpses of semantic restructuring of English emotion-laden words of American English L1 users residing outside the USA. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8, 320–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2018c). Why the dichotomy “L1 Versus LX User” is better than “Native Versus Non-native Speaker.” Applied Linguistics, 39, 236–240.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M. (2018d). “Cunt”: On the perception and handling of verbal dynamite by L1 and LX users of English. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 37, 53–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M., Lorette, P., & Petrides, K. V. (2019) The effects of linguistic proficiency, trait emotional intelligence and cultural background on emotion recognition by English L1 users. In Juez, L. Alba & Mackenzie, L. (Eds.), Emotion in discourse (pp. 285–305). Benjamins.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M., Lorette, P., Rolland, L., & Mavrou, E. (2021). Differences in emotional reactions of Greek, Hungarian and British users of English when watching English television. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J.-M., & Salomidou, L. (2017). Loving a partner in a foreign language. Journal of Pragmatics, 108, 116–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durrett, R. (2004). Probability: Theory and examples (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gobl, C., & Ní Chasaide, A. (2003). The role of voice quality in communicating emotion, mood and attitude. Speech Communication, 40, 189–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, C., & Post, B. (2018). Second language acquisition of intonation: Peak alignment in American English. Journal of Phonetics, 66, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, C. R., Hamblin, A. W., & Feldstein, S. (2001). Recognition of emotion in English voices by speakers of Japanese, Spanish and English. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 39, 19–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grandjean, D., Bänziger, T., & Scherer, K. R. (2006). Intonation as an interface between language and affect. Progress in Brain Research, 156, 235–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hellbernd, N., & Sammler, D. (2016). Prosody conveys speaker’s intentions: Acoustic cues for speech act perception. Journal of Memory and Language, 88, 70–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermans, D., Houwer, J. D., & Eelen, P. (1994). The affective priming effect: Automatic activation of evaluative information in memory. Cognition & Emotion, 8, 515–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishi, C. T., & Kanda, T. (2019). Prosodic and voice quality analyses of loud speech: Differences of hot anger and far-directed speech. In Workshop on Speech, Music and Mind (SMM). Vienna, Austria. https://doi.org/10.21437/smm.2019-1.Google Scholar
Johnstone, T., & Scherer, K. R. (1999). The effects of emotions on voice quality. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetics Sciences (ICPS) (pp. 2029–2032). San Francisco.Google Scholar
Johnstone, T., van Reekum, C. M., Hird, K., Kirsner, K., & Scherer, K. R. (2005). Affective speech elicited with a computer game. Emotion, 5, 513–518.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jun, S.-A. (2005). Prosody in sentence processing: Korean vs. English. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics , 104, 26–45.Google Scholar
Juslin, P. N., & Laukka, P. (2003). Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: Different channels, same code? Psychological Bulletin, 129, 770–814.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Juslin, P. N., & Scherer, K. R. (2005). Vocal expression of affect. In Harrigan, J. A., Rosenthal, R., & Scherer, K. R. (Eds.), Series in affective science: The new handbook of methods in nonverbal behavior research (pp. 65–135). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, S., Yu, H., Hong, H., & Lee, H. Y. (2007). A study of Korean intonation using Momel. Malsori, Journal of the Korean Society of Phonetic Sciences and Speech Technology, 63, 85–100.Google Scholar
Kitayama, S., & Ishii, K. (2002). Word and voice: Spontaneous attention to emotional utterances in two languages. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 29–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krauss, R. M., Chen, Y., & Chawla, P. (1996). Nonverbal behavior and nonverbal communication: What do conversational hand gestures tell us? Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 28, 389–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Künecke, J., Wilhelm, O., & Sommer, W. (2017). Emotion recognition in nonverbal face-to face communication. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 41, 221–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladd, R. (1996). Intonational phonology. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Li, P., Zhang, F., Tsai, E., & Puls, B. (2013). Language history questionnaire (LHQ 2.0): A new dynamic web-based research tool. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 673–680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorette, P., & Dewaele, J.-M. (2015). Emotion recognition ability in English among L1 and LX users of English. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2, 62–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorette, P., & Dewaele, J.-M. (2020). Emotion recognition ability across different modalities: The role of language status (L1/LX), proficiency and cultural background. Applied Linguistics Review, 11, 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, D. (2011). Second language acquisition of English question intonation by Koreans. In Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, Fredericton, Canada. http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/ACL-CLA-2011-abstracts-resumes.pdf.Google Scholar
Marcos, L. R. (1976). Linguistic dimensions in the bilingual patient. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 36, 347–354.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mavrou, E., & Dewaele, J.-M. (2020). Emotionality and pleasantness of mixed-emotion stimuli: The role of language, modality, and emotional intelligence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 30, 313–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, D. E., Schvaneveldt, R. W., & Ruddy, M. G. (1975). Loci of contextual effects on visual word recognition. In Rabbitt, P. & Dornic, S. (Eds.), Attention and performance (pp. 98–118). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Min, C. S., & Schirmer, A. (2011). Perceiving verbal and vocal emotions in a second language. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 1376–1392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, I. R., & Arnott, J. L. (1993). Toward the simulation of emotion in synthetic speech: A review of the literature on human vocal emotion. The Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 93, 1097–1108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parkinson, B. (2005). Do facial movements express emotions or communicate motives? Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc., 9, 278–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patterson, D., & Ladd, R. (1999). Pitch range modelling: Linguistic dimensions of variations. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetics Sciences (ICPS) (pp. 1169–1172). San Francisco.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2005). Emotions and Multilingualism. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2012). Affective processing in bilingual speakers: Disembodied cognition? International Journal of Psychology, 47, 405–428.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pell, M. D. (2001). Influence of emotion and focus location on prosody in matched statements and questions. Journal of Acoustic Society of America, 109, 1668–1680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pell, M. D., Jaywant, A., Monetta, L., & Kotz, S. A. (2011). Emotional speech processing: Disentangling the effects of prosody and semantic cues. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 834–853.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pell, M. D., Paulmann, M. D., Dara, S. C., Alasseri, A., & Kotzb, S. A. (2009). Factors in the recognition of vocally expressed emotions: A comparison of our languages. Journal of Phonetics, 37, 417–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pell, M. D., & Skorup, V. (2008). Implicit processing of emotional prosody in a foreign versus native language. Speech Communication, 50, 519–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, L. (2018). Discourse intonation: A discourse-pragmatic approach to teaching the pronunciation of English. University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). The phonology and phonetics of English intonation [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Protopapas, A., & Lieberman, P. (1997). Fundamental frequency of phonation and perceived emotional stress. The Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2267–2277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rintell, E. (1984). But how did you feel about that? The learner’s perception of emotion in speech. Applied Linguistics, 5, 255–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodero, E. (2011). Intonation and emotion: Influence of pitch levels and contour types on creating emotions. Journal of Voice, 25, 25–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RStudio Team. (2020). RStudio: Integrated development for R. RStudio, PBC, Boston, MA. http://www.rstudio.com/.Google Scholar
Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110, 145–172.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Santiago-Rivera, A.L., & Altarriba, J. (2002) The role of language in therapy with the Spanish-English bilingual client. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33, 30–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherer, K. R. (2003). Vocal communication of emotion: A review of research paradigms. Speech Communication, 40, 227–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, P. (1994). The rise/fall/connection model of intonation. Speech Communication, 15, 169–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tonhauser, J. (2019). Prosody and meaning: On the production, perception and interpretation of prosodically marked focus. In Cummins, C. & Katsos, N. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of experimental semantics and pragmatics (pp. 494–511). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Verdugo, D. R. (2005). The nature and patterning of native and non-native intonation in the expression of certainty and uncertainty: Pragmatic effects. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 2086–2115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, T., Lee, Y. C., & Ma, Q. (2018). Within and across language comparison of vocal emotions in Mandarin and English. Applied Sciences, 8, 2629–2647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weger, U. W., Meier, B. P., Robinson, M. D., & Inhoff, A. W. (2007). Things are sounding up: Affective influences on auditory tone perception. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 517–521.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wennerstorm, A. (2001). Intonation and evaluation in oral narratives. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 1183–1206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar