Speech Timing Adaptation of EFL Learners in Dialogic Reading and Implications for Pronunciation Instruction

Yang, In Young; Ahn, Hyunkee

doi:10.30961/lr.2025.61.3.249

Lang. Res. 61(3):249-275

pISSN: 0254-4474, eISSN: 2586-7113

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30961/lr.2025.61.3.249

Article

Speech Timing Adaptation of EFL Learners in Dialogic Reading and Implications for Pronunciation Instruction

In Young Yang¹, Hyunkee Ahn²^,^†

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹Korea National University of Transportation

¹Seoul National University

^†Corresponding author: Professor Department of English Language Education Seoul National University 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea E-mail: ahnhk@snu.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright 2025 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jun 30, 2025 ; Revised: Nov 21, 2025 ; Accepted: Jan 25, 2025

Published Online: Dec 31, 2025

ABSTRACT

This study examined how Korean learners of English adjust their speech rhythm in two settings: dialogue reading with a native speaker and monologue reading. Thirty-five university students read English scripts under both conditions. Speech rhythm was analyzed using the vocalic normalized Pairwise Variability Index (nPVI; Grabe & Low, 2002) and compared based on participants’ pronunciation nativelikeness. The results showed that rhythm in the dialogue condition was more stress-timed than in the monologue condition. Repeated measures two-way ANOVA revealed significant effects of reading condition, whereas the effects of pronunciation nativelikeness and its interaction with reading condition were not statistically significant. These findings partially support the role of interactional context in second language (L2) pronunciation and suggest that engaging learners in dialogue practice with more stress-timed speakers may promote rhythmic adaptation. Implications for technology-enhanced pronunciation instruction and the need to examine L2 pronunciation in AI-based interactional contexts are discussed.

Keywords: second language pronunciation; pronunciation in interaction; English rhythm; rhythmic adaptation; phonetic convergence; phonetic alignment; pronunciation instruction

References

Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of general phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press .

Arvaniti, A. (2009). Rhythm, timing and the timing of rhythm. Phonetica, 66(1-2), 46-63 .

Birch, S., & Clifton, C. (1995). Focus, accent, and argument structure: Effects on language comprehension. Language and Speech, 38(4), 365-391 .

Bock, J. K., & Mazzella, J. R. (1983). Intonational marking of given and new information: Some consequences for comprehension. Memory and Cognition, 11(1), 64-76 .

Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2025). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (version 6.4.39) [Computer program]. Retrieved from https://www.praat.org/ .

Choe, W. K. (2019). The realization of English rhythm by Busan Korean speakers. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 11(4), 81-87 .

Choe, W. K. (2022). The effect of pronunciation teaching on the realization of English rhythm by Korean learners of English. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 14(2), 19-28 .

Chung, H. (2013a). Phonological accommodation and convergence of English consonants in interlanguage talk by Korean learners of English in the UK. Language and Linguistics, 59, 241-266 .

Chung, H. (2013b). A study on the rhythm of Korean English learners' interlanguage talk. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 5(3), 3-10 .

10.

Cutler, A. (1976). Beyond parsing and lexical look-up. In R. J. Wales & E. C. T. Walkers (Eds.), New approaches to language mechanisms: A collection of psycholinguistic studies (pp. 133-149). Amsterdam: North Holland .

11.

Cutler, A. (1984). Stress and accent in language production and understanding. In D. Gibbon & H. Ritcher (Eds.), Intonation, accent and rhythm: Studies in discourse phonology (Vol. 8, pp. 76-90). New York: Walter de Gruyter .

12.

Cutler, A., & Fodor, J. A. (1979). Semantic focus and sentence comprehension. Cognition, 7(1), 49-59 .

13.

Cutler, A., & Foss, D. J. (1977). On the role of sentence stress in sentence processing. Language and Speech, 20(1), 1-10 .

14.

Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2005). Second language accent and pronunciation teaching: A research based approach. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 379-397 .

15.

Flesch, R. (1948). A new readability yardstick. Journal of Applied Psychology, 32(3), 221-233 .

16.

Gibbon, D. (2003, August). Computational modelling of rhythm as alternation, iteration and hierarchy. In Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 2489-2492). Barcelona, Spain .

17.

Grabe, E., & Low, E. L. (2002). Durational variability in speech and the rhythm class hypothesis. In C. Gussenhoven & N. Warner (Eds.), Laboratory phonology 7 (pp. 515-546). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter .

18.

Gut, U. (2003, August). Non-native speech rhythm in German. In Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 2437-2440). Barcelona, Spain .

19.

Hahn, L. D., & Dickerson, W. B. (1999). Speech craft: Discourse pronunciation for advanced learners. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press .

20.

Jang, T. Y. (2008). Speech rhythm metrics for automatic scoring of English speech by Korean EFL learners. Malsori, 1(66), 41-59 .

21.

Kang, O. (2010). Relative salience of suprasegmental features on judgments of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness. System, 38(2), 301-315 .

22.

Kennedy, S., & Trofimovich, P. (2017). Pronunciation acquisition. In M. Sato & S. Loewen (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of instructed second language acquisition (pp. 260-279). New York: Routledge .

23.

Kim, J. M., Flynn, S., & Oh, M. (2007). Non-native speech rhythm: A large-scale study of English pronunciation by Korean learners: A large-scale study of English pronunciation by Korean learners. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology, 13(2), 219-250 .

24.

Kim, S.-A. (2021). Foreign accentedness rating and rhythm in L2 English. The Mirae Journal of English Language and Literature, 26(4), 101-120 .

25.

Kim, S.-A. (2016). Quantitative approach to L2 rhythm: With specific references to Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese learners of English. Studies in Linguistics, 39, 49-65 .

26.

Kim, Y., & Michel, M. (2023). Linguistic alignment in second language acquisition: A methodological review. System, 115, 103007 .

27.

Levis, J. M. (2005). Changing contexts and shifting paradigms in pronunciation teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 369-377 .

28.

Lewandowski, N. (2012). Talent in foreign language learning: The phonetic talent hypothesis from an experimental phonetic perspective (Doctoral dissertation). Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin .

29.

McAuliffe, M., Socolof, M., Mihuc, S., Wagner, M., & Sonderegger, M. (2017, August). Montreal forced aligner: Trainable text-speech alignment using Kaldi. In Interspeech 2017 (pp. 498-502). Stockholm, Sweden .

30.

Ordin, M., & Polyanskaya, L. (2015). Acquisition of speech rhythm in a second language by learners with rhythmically different native languages. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(2), 533-544 .

31.

Park, M., & Lee, J. (2022). A study on the comparison of AI Pengtalk's and English native speakers' assessment of elementary students' English pronunciation. Journal of the Korean English Education Society, 22(4), 67-90 .

32.

Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2004). Toward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(2), 169-190 .

33.

R Core Team. (2024). R: A language and environment for statistical computing (version 4.4.2) [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://www.R-project.org .

34.

Ramus, F., Nespor, M., & Mehler, J. (1999). Correlates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signal. Cognition, 73(3), 265-292 .

35.

Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2012). Disentangling accent from comprehensibility. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(4), 905-916 .

36.

Trofimovich, P., & Kennedy, S. (2014). Interactive alignment between bilingual interlocutors: Evidence from two information-exchange tasks. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(4), 822-836 .

37.

Trofimovich, P., McDonough, K., & Foote, J. A. (2014). Interactive alignment of multisyllabic stress patterns in a second language classroom. Tesol Quarterly, 48(4), 815-832 .

38.

Trofimovich, P., McDonough, K., & Kennedy, S. (2014, August). Interactive alignment: What's in it for language teachers? TESL Ontario Contact Magazine, 15-21 .

39.

Van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. London: Longman .

40.

White, L., & Mattys, S. L. (2007). Calibrating rhythm: First and second language studies. Journal of Phonetics, 35(4), 501-522 .

41.

Xue, W., & Chung, H. (2021). A study of the rhythm of native, Chinese, and Korean speakers of English in read speech. Journal of the Korean English Education Society, 20(3), 29-47 .

42.

Yang, I. Y. (2014). Acoustic cues in Korean high school students' L2 phoneme perception and speech segmentation. Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics, 30(4), 235-264 .

43.

Yang, I. Y. (2017). Instructional effects on voice onset time perception in L2 speech segmentation. Language Research, 53(3), 561-585 .

44.

Yang, I. Y. (2021). Differential contribution of English suprasegmentals to L2 foreign-accentedness and speech comprehensibility: Implications for teaching EFL pronunciation, speaking, and listening. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, 21, 818-836 .

45.

Yoo, S., & Ahn, H. (2024). The effects of prosody training with AI chatbot on the English pronunciation improvement of Korean EFL learners. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, 24, 1300-1317 .