Visual representation of prosody for tactful communication skills – the case of request in Japanese as a Foreign Language taught to French university students

Takeki Kamiyama (1) , Yoshino Yamamoto (2)

1 LPP - LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018
2 International Student Center

Some foreign/second language learners end up producing utterances which sound rude to native listeners. Learners have to use not only appropriate vocabulary items, expressions, constructions, and communication strategies, but also appropriate prosody that accompanies them. However, similar prosodic patterns do not necessarily convey similar paralinguistic information across languages. It was shown that some attitudes were perceived easily by non-native listeners, while others were confounded when they formed prosodic “faux amis” (Shochi et al. 2006 for French and Japanese). It is therefore essential to teach the appropriate prosodic patterns of L2 explicitly when they differ from the ones expected in the native language of the learners. In the case of Japanese taught to French university students as a foreign language, we notice cases of this kind in expressions of request or refusal, which could threaten the face of the recipient of the message. Inappropriate prosody produced by learners might offend the listener, who, in the case of request, would be reluctant to do them a favour, and hinder a fluent communication in spite of the learner's intention to succeed in the interaction. Learners at elementary level might be excused, but advanced learners who speak fluently would not be, since the expectation of the listener is higher. It is a pity that a highly fluent learner should be considered rude simply because they do not produce appropriate prosody. It is therefore important to teach it explicitly in language classes. The present paper reports the instruction given to the students of Japanese at Charles de Gaulle University (Lille 3) in France, with a focus on the visual representation of prosody used in the classes.

Domaines: Linguistique

Takeki Kamiyama, Yoshino Yamamoto. Visual representation of prosody for tactful communication skills – the case of request in Japanese as a Foreign Language taught to French university students. Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference 2007, Aug 2007, London, United Kingdom. Paper ID 37. ⟨hal-00468450⟩