The effect of prosodic boundary in understanding English sentences by Japanese EFL learners

Abstract

The current study explores how Japanese EFL learners use prosodic information in understanding auditory-presented English sentences. Two experiments were conducted to determine which information between prosodic and syntactic information Japanese EFL learners use in analyzing sentence structure, when the two suggest conflicting syntactic structures. The results showed that the prosodic boundary that signals sentence structures is important information for Japanese EFL learners in understanding English sentences. It was also revealed that learners with higher proficiency tended to rely more on syntactic information rather than prosodic information in analyzing the sentence structure.