This study investigated whether L2 English learners’ prosodic properties in speech acts change as they are immersed in the English-speaking academic community over time, and if so, what individual and contextual factors (proficiency, orientation to language study, and target language contact) potentially affect these changes. Forty-seven Japanese learners of English in an English-medium university in Japan completed a speaking task that elicited two speech acts (request and opinion) three times over one academic year (8 months). Their speech was analyzed for discourse intonational features (e.g., tone choices, prominence ratio, and pitch range). Results showed that all prosodic properties changed over time, although the pace and patterns of changes differed among the properties. Proficiency and language contact significantly affected the change in tone choice, but no other relationship was found between individual/contextual factors and changes in prominence ratio or pitch range.

本研究调查了 L2 英语学习者在言语行为中的韵律特性是否会随着时间的推移而改变，如果他们沉浸在讲英语的学术社区中，以及如果是，哪些个人和背景因素（熟练程度、语言学习的方向和目标语言接触）可能会影响这些变化。日本一所英语语言大学的 47 名日语学习者完成了一项口语任务，该任务在一个学年（8 个月）内 3 次引发了两次言语行为（请求和意见）。他们的演讲被分析为语调特征（例如，音调选择、突出比例和音高范围）。结果表明，所有韵律特性都随着时间而变化，尽管变化的速度和模式在特性之间有所不同。