Assessing Intonation in the Spontaneous and Scripted Speech of Native and Non-native Speakers of English

Although there have been a large number of studies on English intonation and intonation teaching there has been little research on intonation assessment other than [1], [3] and [4]. This paper evaluates the intonation of native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) of English with and without knowledge of intonation theory in spontaneous and scripted speech tasks, and asks whether they can be assessed effectively on both types of task. The conclusions drawn from this study are that intonation in spontaneous speech is more accurate than in scripted speech, that this is true of both NSs and NNSs, and that teaching of intonation theory can have a positive effect on performance in a scripted speech task. We also conclude that it is unreasonable to assess learners’ intonation in a scripted speech task unless they have received training in intonation theory.