4 Melodic cues of acted emotional speech in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers
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Shaohua Sun
Abstract
Numerous authors have argued that emotions expressed vocally can be universally perceived, regardless of linguistic or cultural familiarity with the expresser - although some findings suggest that cultural or linguistic distance may slightly decrease agreement between expresser and perceiver. However, recent studies suggest that this universalist hypothesis is supported by results biased by specific methodological choices (Gendron et al. 2014; Lorette 2021). Intonation represents a pivotal pragmatic aspect of communication. Melodic cues appear to be critical in the perception of politeness in Spanish (Devís 2011) and, therefore, may cause serious linguistic misunderstandings in cross-cultural interactions. For instance, LX Spanish speakers who are unfamiliar with Spanish politeness intonation codes were shown to be perceived as impolite against their communicative intentions (Herrero and Devís 2020). Analogously, we argue that melodic cues play an important role in emotion communication. Although prosodic features of emotional speech in Spanish have recently attracted the interest of researchers (Garrido 2011; Hidalgo 2020; Padilla 2022), little is known about the melodic cues of emotional speech in LX Spanish. This study aims to shed light on the phenomenon of joy and sadness intonation in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese learners of Spanish. We conducted a Melodic Analysis of Speech (MAS) (Cantero and Font- Rotchés 2020) of 200 utterances of acted joy (100) and acted sadness (100) in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers. After comparing the melodic patterns and conducting perception tests to check which patterns are perceived according to the intended emotion, we describe the melodic patterns of acted joy and sadness in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese speakers. The results of this study will help understand which melodic aspects of speech should be introduced in the LX classroom when teaching how joy and sadness are typically expressed in Spanish.
Abstract
Numerous authors have argued that emotions expressed vocally can be universally perceived, regardless of linguistic or cultural familiarity with the expresser - although some findings suggest that cultural or linguistic distance may slightly decrease agreement between expresser and perceiver. However, recent studies suggest that this universalist hypothesis is supported by results biased by specific methodological choices (Gendron et al. 2014; Lorette 2021). Intonation represents a pivotal pragmatic aspect of communication. Melodic cues appear to be critical in the perception of politeness in Spanish (Devís 2011) and, therefore, may cause serious linguistic misunderstandings in cross-cultural interactions. For instance, LX Spanish speakers who are unfamiliar with Spanish politeness intonation codes were shown to be perceived as impolite against their communicative intentions (Herrero and Devís 2020). Analogously, we argue that melodic cues play an important role in emotion communication. Although prosodic features of emotional speech in Spanish have recently attracted the interest of researchers (Garrido 2011; Hidalgo 2020; Padilla 2022), little is known about the melodic cues of emotional speech in LX Spanish. This study aims to shed light on the phenomenon of joy and sadness intonation in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese learners of Spanish. We conducted a Melodic Analysis of Speech (MAS) (Cantero and Font- Rotchés 2020) of 200 utterances of acted joy (100) and acted sadness (100) in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers. After comparing the melodic patterns and conducting perception tests to check which patterns are perceived according to the intended emotion, we describe the melodic patterns of acted joy and sadness in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese speakers. The results of this study will help understand which melodic aspects of speech should be introduced in the LX classroom when teaching how joy and sadness are typically expressed in Spanish.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of figures IX
- List of tables XV
- Introduction: Affective language and prosody as a key 1
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Section A: Approaches to learning and teaching prosody
- 1 On the functional map of intonation in Spanish Foreign Language (SFL) teaching: is there a place for emotion? 11
- 2 The effect of emotions on melodic patterns. A focus on Spanish learning 41
- 3 Affect and emotional prosody in the foreign language classroom 61
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Section B: Affectivity and prosody
- 4 Melodic cues of acted emotional speech in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers 79
- 5 Emotion and melodic features of emphasis in Spanish produced by Chinese speakers 105
- 6 Melodic features of emphatic intonation in Spanish spoken by Swedish speakers 131
- 7 The prosody of word stress realization as a possible sign of insecurity in the spontaneous speech of Hungarian learners of Spanish 157
- 8 Catalan early readers prosodic characterization of a wh-question: traits of affectation 175
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Section C: Emotional status of L2 learners
- 9 Foreign language speaking anxiety and automatic speech recognition-based practice 213
- 10 Facilitating oral skills and willingness to communicate in the L2 classroom: towards a music-and-emotion-mediated learning 229
- 11 Feeling lonely in a new country: The emotional discourse of migrant learners of Spanish 251
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Section D: Cross-cultural affective conditioning factors in L2 learning
- 12 Music videos for fostering awareness of democratic culture in foreign language learning 275
- 13 Intercultural climate in university segregated classrooms: Language, emotions, and gender dynamics in Qatar’s higher education settings 295
- 14 Chinese EFL learners’ cognition of colour and colour-related emotional expressions in the case of red and blue 317
- Conclusions 341
- Index 347
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of figures IX
- List of tables XV
- Introduction: Affective language and prosody as a key 1
-
Section A: Approaches to learning and teaching prosody
- 1 On the functional map of intonation in Spanish Foreign Language (SFL) teaching: is there a place for emotion? 11
- 2 The effect of emotions on melodic patterns. A focus on Spanish learning 41
- 3 Affect and emotional prosody in the foreign language classroom 61
-
Section B: Affectivity and prosody
- 4 Melodic cues of acted emotional speech in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers 79
- 5 Emotion and melodic features of emphasis in Spanish produced by Chinese speakers 105
- 6 Melodic features of emphatic intonation in Spanish spoken by Swedish speakers 131
- 7 The prosody of word stress realization as a possible sign of insecurity in the spontaneous speech of Hungarian learners of Spanish 157
- 8 Catalan early readers prosodic characterization of a wh-question: traits of affectation 175
-
Section C: Emotional status of L2 learners
- 9 Foreign language speaking anxiety and automatic speech recognition-based practice 213
- 10 Facilitating oral skills and willingness to communicate in the L2 classroom: towards a music-and-emotion-mediated learning 229
- 11 Feeling lonely in a new country: The emotional discourse of migrant learners of Spanish 251
-
Section D: Cross-cultural affective conditioning factors in L2 learning
- 12 Music videos for fostering awareness of democratic culture in foreign language learning 275
- 13 Intercultural climate in university segregated classrooms: Language, emotions, and gender dynamics in Qatar’s higher education settings 295
- 14 Chinese EFL learners’ cognition of colour and colour-related emotional expressions in the case of red and blue 317
- Conclusions 341
- Index 347
