Music boosts prosody: Exploring the importance of music in learning second language prosody

Objective

Objectives: This multisession and crosslinguistic study will develop and assess the effectiveness of an innovative training approach: musical prosodic training on prosody learning in L2 Portuguese. The objectives are to examine (1) the role of musical prosodic training on the learning of L2 prosody perception and production, (2) the cross-linguistic transfer in prosodic features, and (3) how individual differences affect the L2 prosodic training effects. Methods: First, the musical prosodic training will integrate the existing L2 pronunciation training paradigms and musical training approach to improve learners’ L2 prosody. Second, the learning outcome will be measured using traditional offline/static (e.g., rating, annotation) and innovative online/dynamic methods. I will use the innovative eye-tracking technique – pupillometry – to test the online perception efforts in L2 prosody and model the prosody production with a dynamic statistic method – Generalized Additive Mixed Model. Third, I will include learners with typologically different linguistic backgrounds (i.e., English and Mandarin speakers) to validate the cross-linguistic influence on L2 prosody. Fourth, I will assess the learners’ musical aptitude as individual measures to determine if better aptitude leads to a better learning outcome. Relevance: The results of the proposal will provide novel data beyond the L2 speech sounds towards the L2 speech prosody to enrich the L2 speech learning theory. It will advance the pedagogical resources for L2 prosody, which will help learners improve their overall L2 pronunciation proficiency for better integration into the target L2 society and/or L2 culture. Finally, the results of the proposal will be transferable to the prosodic learning of other L2s, which is relevant to the multilingual world: not only Portugal but also the EU and beyond.