Schedule 79. StuTS

This article examines the phonological and pragmatic properties of canonical tag questions (CTQs) in English (L2) and Serbian (L1). While English CTQs are attested to be realized with either rise or fall, depending on the pragmatic function entailed, their Serbian counterparts are deemed only available with an H% contour, i.e. as obligatorily information-soliciting questions (Godjevac 2000b, i.a.). This article challenges this allegation by suggesting that a falling tone can also be utilized in rhetorical questions via five contextualized recorded dialogues and a Likert scale, with 30 first-year phonologically uninstructed and 30 third-year phonologically instructed Serbian native English undergraduate university students. The results displaying a somewhat positive response to the hypothesis (35% either + 20% fall), with a far greater predilection for rises (35% either + 45% rise), the next step was to test the presence of interphonological transfer into English. In 40 recorded dialogues, the respondents were to be tested for the recognition of the (i) tone and (ii) pragmatic functions of English CTQs. The results indicate that, while third-year students are better at telling the rises apart from the falls (p<0.05), there is no significant difference between them and first-year students in discriminating between the two tones' pragmatic functions (p>0.05). However, the fact that the participants recognize English rises with their concomitant functions better than the falls taken together (p<0.001), and coupled with the fact that the rise seems to be the tone of choice in Serbian CTQs, the findings clearly indicate that there is a significant interphonological transfer from Serbian into English, pointing to a need for an earlier introduction of phonology courses.

Info

Day: 2026-05-16
Start time: 11:30
Duration: 00:30
Room: DOR 24 1.501
Track: Phonetics/Phonology
Language: en

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