THE KNOWLEDGE OF PROSODY IN HELPING STUDENTS RESPONSE UTTERANCES APPROPRIATELY

Abstract

In spoken discourse, besides the use of vocal and gestural signs, prosody is an important part to consider since without appropriate prosody- Intonation and accent and the meaningful elements of speech apart from the words that are uttered (Kreidler, 1998), the speaker may fail to deliver the meanings and the listeners may fail to catch the message. Then, it results in misunderstanding. This study is conducted to find out whether the knowledge of prosody helps students to communicate appropriately. The participants of this study are 20 students who joined semantics and 20 students who did not take semantics. They were asked to give appropriate respond to contrast the 20 utterance which have emphases. The utterances are recorded and transcribed. Triangulation was done by another person to get the accuracy of the data. The result shows that there are more students (85% ) who have knowledge of prosody able to respond the utterances appropriately. This proves that teaching prosody is essensial to make the students realize the function of prosody.