The perception and interpretation of English tones by Iraqi learners at the university level : a statistical study

Abstract EN

This paper investigates the perception and interpretation of English sentence intonation by Iraqi learners at the university level.

Forty subjects participated in an experiment to perceive and interpret the tones of five pairs of sentences.

Intonation was the only aspect that differentiated each pair.

The analysis of the results reveals the poor knowledge of the learners in perceiving the tones and in realising the meanings associated with each tone.

The study suggests that emphasis should be placed on the teaching of intonation in real life situations to increase the students' sensitivity to this important aspect of language.