Prosody in Pragmatic Competence: Proficiency Impact on Pitch and Fluency Features in Request-Making in Second Language Chinese

This cross-sectional study examines the sociopragmatic use of pitch and fluency features in requests among second language (L2) Chinese learners at two proficiency levels alongside native Chinese speakers. Twenty-eight L2 learners completed a 40-item oral discourse task with two types of request-making situations: (a) a high-imposition request to a higher status person and (b) a low-imposition request to an equal-status person. Similarly to native speakers, both higher proficiency and lower proficiency learners adjusted fluency features (e.g., speech rate, pauses) according to situational demands. However, only higher proficiency learners showed nativelike adjustment in pitch range, and neither group adjusted pitch value (F0) in different situations. These results suggest that the development of L2 learners’ sociopragmatic use of prosody is dependent on specific prosodic features.