Prosodic Patterns And Meaning Construction In Spoken Academic English

Jimmi

doi:10.30998/scope.v11i1.1999

Authors

Jimmi Universitas Bina Sarana Informatika Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30998/scope.v11i1.1999

Keywords:

Prosody, Academic English Speaking, Non-English Major Students, Qualitative Case Study

Abstract

Prosody plays a significant role in spoken communication by facilitating meaning construction, communication effectiveness, and listener engagement in academic English-speaking contexts. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on English-major students, while limited attention has been given to non-English-major students from technology-related disciplines. Therefore, this study aims to explore how non-English-major students employ prosodic features in academic English speaking. This study adopted a qualitative case study approach involving 44 undergraduate students from Information Systems, Information Systems and Technology, and Information Technology programs at Universitas Siber Indonesia. The primary data consisted of students’ English dialogue video recordings produced as part of their academic speaking assignments, from which five recordings were purposively selected for detailed analysis. Data were analyzed through qualitative prosodic analysis focusing on five prosodic features, namely intonation, stress, rhythm, pausing, and pitch variation. The findings revealed that students actively employed all identified prosodic features during their speaking performances. Among these features, intonation, stress, and pausing emerged as the most dominant prosodic resources used to express meaning, emphasize important information, and organize ideas during communication, while rhythm and pitch variation contributed to maintaining conversational flow and listener engagement. These findings indicate that prosody serves as an important communicative resource in academic English speaking and highlight the need to integrate prosodic awareness into English-speaking instruction for non-English-major students.

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