Misuses of English Intonation for Chinese Students in Cross-Cultural Communication

Shuying HUO, Quan LUO

Abstract


Increasingly cross-cultural communications bring about more English learners in China. With attitudinal and discourse functions, English intonation plays an important part in cross-cultural communication. However, students in China have insufficient awareness of the important role intonation plays. Some students fail to tell the real intentions conveyed by the intonation of the speaker. Others misuse  English intonations and lead to misunderstandings. These will have negative effects on a successful cross-cultural communication. Based on the former researches, this paper focuses on analyzing the common types of intonation misuses and exploring their root causes. It points out that the negative transfer of Chinese is one of the root causes for indecent intonation, and then comes up with several suggestions on how to avoid indecent intonations. It argues that learners should firstly realize the difference between Chinese and English intonation, focus more on intonation learning with a sound motivation and cultivate good learning strategies so as to reduce the negative transfer from Chinese and avoid indecent intonation. As more people realized the importance of  intonations, decent intonation will help them achieve more and more successful cross-cultural communication.


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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/%25x

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