Speech Act and Prosody Interaction during Listening Comprehension: Evidence from an ERP Study

Abstract

Recognizing a speech act in fast speech contexts is essential to L2 learners as well as L1 native speakers for their successful communication. English is well known for using a particular type of phonologically-salient intonation accompanying a speech act. Manipulating intonation, we measured event-related potentials (ERP(s)) when L2 English learners listened to three types of speech act accompanying matched or mismatched intonations. The results showed that, first, the statement with proper, vs. improper question intonation, evoked marginal N400 effects at left anterior regions, Second, the question with proper, vs. improper statement intonation, recorded reduced N600 effects at all regions. Third, the reprimand with proper, vs. improper statement intonation, registered reduced P200 effects at anterior regions, followed by N600 effects at anterior regions. Since the three different speech acts tested evoked distinct ERP components, we interpret these results to indicate that the L2 English learners successfully managed to recognize the three speech acts. In addition, the L2 English learners experienced the least difficulty in processing a question accompanying perceptually the most marked intonation.