







































Education, Society and Human Studies 
ISSN 2690-3679 (Print) ISSN 2690-3687 (Online) 

Vol. 4, No. 3, 2023 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 

39 

Original Paper 

A Research on the Use of Pause and Lengthening for Turn 

Organization in Chinese EFL Students’ Conversations 
Zhihua Xia1* 

1 The School of Foreign Studies, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China 
* Zhihua Xia, The School of Foreign Studies, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, 

China 

 
Received: November 1, 2023   Accepted: November 12, 2023   Online Published: November 19, 2023 

doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n3p39                       URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n3p39 

 
Abstract 

Pause and lengthening are used frequently for turn organization in English interactions. But, for 

Chinese EFL learners, these two prosodic mechanisms are not used efficiently. This study analyzed the 

use of pause and lengthening for turn organization in Chinese EFL learners’ English conversations. 

The results show the excessive dependence on the pause to show the turn yielding intentions in Chinese 

learners’ conversations, and Chinese learners probably cannot distinguish the uses of final lengthening 

within turns and the lengthening before turn changes. 

Keywords 

pause, lengthening, turn organization, Chinese EFL learners 

 
1. Introduction 

Successful communications involve comprehensive uses of language, which include not only the 

proper use of words, but also the contributions of prosody, the non-verbal factors, such as body 

language, paralinguistic means etc. The organization and management of interactions depend greatly on 

the prosodic features. For instance, in terms of turn taking in conversations, interlocutors make use of 

prosodic features to signal their intentions of turn yielding or holding; on the other side, the listeners 

recognize these intentions and gain or await the floor by the use of prosodic features. Therefore, the 

proper usage of prosodic features, as the conversational strategies or skills, plays essential roles in 

human interactions. 

In second language acquisition, it is necessary to investigate the language leaners’ use of prosodic 

features in turn-taking, because it can help to reveal not only the language learners’ competence but 

also their acquisition mechanisms of conversational skills. This study aims to assess Chinese EFL 



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learners’ use of pause and lengthening for turn organization, and attempts to answer the following 

questions:  

1) What are the characteristics of pause and lengthening used by Chinese EFL learners during the 

process of turn taking?  

2) What are the differences in the use of pause and lengthening in turn taking between Chinese EFL 

learners and English native speakers? 

 

2. The Two Variables 

Two prosodic features are set as the key variables of the present research: pauses and lengthening of the 

final syllable. As is known, there are numerous prosodic factors functioning in turn taking: boundary 

tones, rhythm, pitch peak, key shift, pause, lengthening etc. (Truckenbrodt, 2015; Féry, 2016; Ludusn 

& Schuppler, 2022; Xia et al., 2004, 2023; Xia, 2013; Xia & Ma, 2016a, 2016b, 2019). The present 

work focuses on two of them, which are related to the rhythm of speech, because these two variables 

play crucial roles in turn-taking, and they are well studied in L1 spontaneous speech, which offer a 

reliable reference to the study of L2 learners’ language, for example, Petrone et al. (2017) analyzed the 

three acoustic prosodic features: pauses, phrase-final lengthening and f0 in German speech production 

and how these cues affect boundary perception. They found that pauses are often used to signal 

intonation phrase boundaries, while final lengthening and f0 are employed across different levels of the 

prosodic hierarchy. 

2.1 Pause 

The pause usually occurs at the position of TRP (Transition-Relevance Place, Sacks et al., 1974), where 

the speaker relinquishes the floor, and the listener takes the floor, although there is a “smooth transition 

in which transition pauses are perceptually absent” (Walker, 1982). Moreover, the internal pauses 

within a turn play the crucial roles for showing speakers’ intention of turn-holding.  

The studies on the manner of pause in turn-taking are concerned with the categorization of pauses. 

Local and Kelly (1986) distinguished two types of pauses: “trail-off silence” and “holding silence” (pp. 

185-204). The former one indicates the end of a turn; the latter one indicates the speakers’ intention to 

keep the turns. In Bosh et al.’s (2005) study of temporal aspects of turn taking, pauses involved in turn 

taking are classified into three categories: the utterance internal pause (Uip), the pause between 

utterances in one turn (Put), and pauses at turn changes (Ptc). They find that “pauses between 

utterances in one turn appear significantly are longer than utterance internal pauses and pauses at the 

turn changes” (p. 82). This finding is in agreement with earlier findings of Jefferson (1989); Campione 

and Verones (2002) (as cited in Bosh et al., 2005, p. 82). Ludusn and Schuppler (2022) analyzed four 

acoustic cues, representing durational and fundamental frequency (f0) measures, and observed that 

pause duration was the strongest cue to prosodic boundaries. 

 



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The studies on duration of pause in turn-taking are traditional, yet important. They are carried out 

mainly in two fields.  

One field focuses on the length of pause in turn transition. The following four studies have obtained 

similar findings: the length of pause in turn transition is not less than 200ms. Welford (1968) divided 

the interval between speaker A and B into three parts: the viewing time V, decision time D, and a 

movement time M. He finds that the simple decision of the speakers in turn taking requires a reaction 

time V+D+M, which is not less than 200ms (as cited in Walker, 1982. p. 33). Bosh et al. (2005) studied 

the temporal aspects of turn taking in conversational dialogues. They find that the mean length of pause 

between speakers is 380 ms by examining the 6790 transitions in telephone dialogues (p. 83). Liang’s 

(2001) study focused on the temporal characteristics of turn taking in Chinese. He finds that the length 

of pause interval in Chinese as the normal turn transition is between 250ms and 1000ms (p. 43). 

Therefore, although these studies are undertaken from different perspectives, the length of pause in 

turn-taking is proved to be not less 200ms. Krivokapic (2007) tested the Prosodic planning, and found 

the effects of phrasal length and complexity on pause duration.  

The other field focuses on the relationship between pause duration and the probability of turn shift. 

Wennerstrom and Siegel (2003) researched on it. They find that although pause duration is positively 

related to the probability of turn shift, “it appears that the probability of turn shift declines slightly 

within the first 500ms of pause duration, and then increases for longer pauses (p. 93)”. Wennerstrom 

(2001, p. 171) points out that pauses are not the reliable cues for turn finality, although they are 

positively correlated with the probability of turn shift. Speakers may pause in the middle of turn for 

breath, brief thinking, listeners’ better reception, or strategic reasons such as to catch an interlocutor’s 

gaze and, hence, attention (Goodwin, 1981), or to “generate the impression of thoughtfulness” (Good & 

Buter-worth, 1980, p. 51). 

To sum up, pauses related to turn-taking exhibit special characteristics in the placement, manner and 

duration. In the studies on pause in turn taking, two characteristics are worthy of attention for Chinese 

EFL learners. One is the difference in three kinds of pauses: utterance internal pause (Uip), the pause 

between utterances in one turn (Put) and the pause at turn changes (Ptc), which have a close relation to 

turn-holding or turn-yielding; the other is that the different length of pause has a different relation to the 

probability of turn shift. It is necessary to investigate whether they EFL learners can master these subtle 

yet crucial features of pause in turn taking. 

Therefore, in the present study, two questions are examined regarding the second variable: What are the 

relationships between the length of pauses and the probability of turn shift in Chinese learners’ 

conversations? What are the differences or similarities of using pauses in turn taking between Chinese 

EFL learners and English natives? In order to answer these two questions, two measurements on pause 

are undertaken. One is the comparison of three types of pauses in the Chinese EFL learners’ corpus. 

Then this result is compared with the use of English native speakers. The other is the comparison of the 



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relationship between the length of pauses and their probability of turn shift in Chinese learners’ 

conversations with that in English natives’. Through these comparisons, the similarities or differences 

of using pauses in turn taking between Chinese learners and English natives are described. 

Additionally, in order to simplify the operation, filled pauses like ehm, eh, um etc., are considered as 

words in this study. The reasons are as follows: the speaker use filled pauses, this is most likely a signal 

that the current turn is not yet over and they indicate the expectation of upcoming delays; even if the 

filled pause appears to be the first word of a turn, this can be considered to be the start of the turn. So, 

in this research, only silent pauses will be taken into consideration as pauses, which is in agreement 

with choices in previous researches, such as Bosch et al. (2005), Camione and Veronis, (2002), 

Weilhammer and Rabold (2003) (as cited in Bosch et al., 2005, p. 81). 

2.2 Lengthening of the Final Syllable 

Lengthening of the syllable belongs to rhythmic features of intonation (Buxo-Lugo et al., 2020; 

Paschen et al., 2022), and play critical roles in turn transitions. The previous studies are carried out 

mainly from two perspectives.  

From the perspective of the acoustic descriptions of lengthening, the studies mainly focus on the 

accentual lengthening (Turk, 1997; Turk & White, 1999), and boundary-adjacent lengthening. The 

studies of boundary-adjacent lengthening are classified into three subcategories: prosodic boundary 

lengthening (Byrd & Saltzman, 1998), word boundary lengthening (Turk & Shattuck-Hufngel, 2000) 

and phrase boundary lengthening (Byrd & Saltzman, 2003). The findings of these studies are consistent 

that the differences in lengthening in conversations are related to the positions where lengthening 

happens. 

From the perspective of lengthening at discourse level, the researches emphasize the functions of 

lengthening in communication. These studies focus on two aspects. One is the lengthening in topic 

transitions in conversations, and the other is the lengthening in turn taking.  

The studies of lengthening in topic transition focus on the relationship of topic transitions and prosodic 

duration. For example, in Smith Caroline’s (2004) research, the measurement of two American 

speakers’ recorded reading on 10 separate occasions indicates that the type of transition in topic 

between two successive sentences have a significant effect on the amount of sentence-final lengthening, 

the duration of the pause between sentences, and the speech rate at the end of a sentence and the 

beginning of the following sentences. 

Studies on the aspect of lengthening in turn taking focus on two points: the position where lengthening 

in turn taking happens, and the relationship between turn final lengthening and turn internal 

lengthening. 

In terms of the position where lengthening in turn taking happens, several researchers find that 

lengthening on the final syllable before the turn change is recognized as one of the important 

projectability cues of turn taking. For example, according to Duncan et al.’s opinion (1985, p. 54), 



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lengthening on the final syllable is one of the important prosodic turns yielding cues; Beckman and 

Edwards (1990) found the function of lengthening in the nature of prosodic constituency; Wennerstrom 

(2001, p. 169) points out final lengthening of the syllables before the boundary of TCU is considered as 

an important cue for turn transition; John-Lewis (1986, pp. xxi-xxii) points out segmental lengthening 

is associated with the turn finality. 

In terms of the relationship between turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening, studies 

investigate the differences and similarities between these two lengthening.  

In English, at the turn-transition, the utterance final segments are lengthened in order to signal the 

turn-finality, while within the speaker’s turns, at the end of any intonation group, segmental 

lengthening also would be expected. Just as Cruttenden (2002, p. 2) points out, “the last syllable before 

a pause is often lengthened”. What are the differences between these two kinds of lengthening? How 

can the turn final lengthening be differentiated from the turn internal lengthening? Culter et al. (1986, p. 

140) point out: prosodic turn-yielding cues would have to be overlaid upon the utterance-final prosodic 

pattern within the turn. It can be deduced from this statement that the turn-yielding lengthening should 

be more prominent or longer in duration than internal final lengthening in the turns so as to indicate or 

identify effectively the turn-yielding intention of the conversants. 

Culter et al. (1986) investigated the lengthening in turn taking in a perception study on the prosodic 

turn-taking cues. They find the slight tendency for longer utterances to be judged as a turn-final cue, 

although this result failed to reach the criterion of statistical significance.  

Although the studies on the relationship of these two lengthening are limited, the importance and value 

of this issue cannot be denied, and the further investigations into this matter are of great necessity. The 

investigations into the relationship between turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening in 

language learners’ conversations are necessary. It is because the difference between these two kinds of 

lengthening in English natives’ conversations is easy to be neglected by second language learners.  

In summary, the studies of lengthening have been carried out from two perspectives—acoustic 

description of lengthening in turn taking and the studies of lengthening at discourse level. From these 

two perspectives, the contexts in which the lengthening occurs are different. The context from the first 

perspective is intonation groups, words or phrases, while the context from the latter perspective is 

topics or turns in conversations. As for the studies of lengthening in turn taking, the difference between 

turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening is proved to be significant in English. Hence, for 

EFL learners, it is necessary to investigate whether they can make appropriate use of these two kinds of 

lengthening in turn taking. 

This question is investigated in the present research. As the measurement of the second variable: 

segmental lengthening at the turn transition is compared with those final segmental lengthening within 

a turn in Chinese learners’ conversations. And then this result is compared with that of English natives. 

Through the comparison, the similarities or differences of using lengthening in turn taking between 



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Chinese learners and English natives are illuminated.  

 

3. Methods 

3.1 Corpus 

The conversations in the corpus are elicited by the discussions of 16 groups (4 subjects/group), and the 

discussions are made on a given topic: “Should we promote the use of private cars in China? If you can 

afford it, will you buy one? Why or why not?” All of the subjects consist of 64 sophomores, majoring 

in English, which were randomly chosen from the School of Foreign Studies in Jiangsu Normal 

University, Jiangsu Province, China, and they did not know the research purposes. 

Each student in the group wore one head-mounted microphone, which was connected to a computer for 

recording their voices (four computers and four microphones for each group). All the computers were 

put behind the subjects in order to avoid disturbance. The software Cool Edit Pro 2.0 have been used 

for recording (The parameters in Cool Edit have been set as 44100HZ, 16, single track). All of the 

recording process was carried out in a phonetic lab in the School of Foreign Studies in Jiangsu Normal 

University. Before recording, each group was given 2 minutes for preparation. Four trained recorders 

(the author and three assistants) were in charge of four computers respectively. The data recording was 

accomplished on two weekends in the last week of April and the beginning week of May in 2020.  

During the course of discussions, nobody interrupted the subjects. They discussed the given topic freely. 

The discussions ended whenever subjects wanted to stop. The recording time for each group was less 

than 10 minutes. When the discussions were longer than 10 minutes, they were stopped by the recorder. 

After data checking, 70 minutes’ recording of 10 groups was chosen as the corpus for further 

annotation. 

3.2 Data Annotation 

The entire corpus was transcribed on the software Praat 4.2. Three important aspects in data annotation 

are mentioned in this section: the choice of minimal analysis units, the identification of turns in 

spontaneous conversations, and the tiers in Praat.  

3.2.1 Minimal Analysis Units: IPUs 

Inter-Pausal Units (IPUs) are used as the minimal analysis units in this study. Koiso et al. (1998) 

utilized Inter-Pausal Units (IPUs) as the minimal analysis units in the research of intonation roles in the 

turn taking in Japanese. Inter-Pausal Unit is the stretch of a single speaker’s speech bounded by pauses 

longer than 100 ms and it is used as an approximation of the notion of TCU. Caspers (2003) also 

employed this unit in studying local speech melody in turn taking system in Dutch.  

In previous studies, some researchers choose the turn units or complete grammatical units as the 

minimal analysis units. But they are not suitable for this study. The reasons are: 1) turn units are too 

general. If the minimal analysis unit is chosen as one turn in the present research, the relationship 

between turn units will become prominent while the features within one turn cannot be described. Thus, 



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the use of intonation features will not be depicted thoroughly; 2) the present research focuses on the 

relationship between prosodic features and turn-taking instead of the grammatical factors in turn-taking. 

Choosing grammatical unit as the minimal analysis unit will make the investigation more complicated 

and will divert the researching focus.  

The IPUs are adopted in present study for four reasons: 1) these units can be determined objectively; 2) 

one IPU is not larger than one turn. IPUs may occur within turns or at turn transitions. Thus, the 

prosodic features can be described in detail by cutting the corpus into small IPUs; 3) these units 

eliminate syntactic disturbances, and make the role of intonation prominent; 4) there is evidence for the 

decision on intervals of 100 milliseconds. Hieke et al. (1983) point out that a pause which is not shorter 

than.13 sec has psychological relevance. Wennerstrom and Siegel (2003) point out: “pauses were 

considered any length of time of .1 sec and up where there was no speech-related amplitude (p. 86)”.  

3.2.2 Identification of Turns in Spontaneous Conversations 

Spontaneous speech is dynamic yet complex. The complexity mainly exist in the occurrence of 

conversation features such as repair, back-channel, overlapping, interruptions, which happen frequently 

in spontaneous conversations. It is necessary to identify these conversational features as one turn or 

more than one turn. The present research adopted the principles of Caspers (2003) and Liu (2004) for 

judgment. 

Figure 1 shows Caspers’ (2003, p. 261) methods, in which “hold” means that the same speaker 

continues after a pause of 100 ms or more, while “change” means that a turn change has happened, 

with or without an intervening pause. 

 

 

Figure 1. Schematic Representation of the Five Turn Transition Types 

 

Figure 1 The boxes following S1 depict stretches of speech uttered by speaker 1, S2 indicates the 

speech by speaker 2, the dotted line marks the time course, and the arrow indicates the relevant IPU 

boundary. 

3.2.3 Tiers on Praat 

The data was cut into 2404 IPUs, and presented by 532 interfaces in Praat, each of which was not 



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longer than 20 seconds. Every interface of Praat was labeled by five tiers. Figure 2 is an example of the 

annotation on Praat. 

Pause tier: Pauses longer than 100ms were labeled in this tier, and the IPUs bounded by the pauses 

were identified.  

Orthographic tier: What the subjects talked was transcribed word by word in this tier.  

Boundary tone tier: Boundary tone of the last intonation group at the end of every IPU was labeled in 

this tier. 

Lengthening tier: Duration of final syllable of every IPU was labeled at the end of every IPU in this 

tier.  

Transition type tier: the transition type was labeled at the end of every IPU in this tier for turn changing 

and holding (“C” for change, and “H” for hold). 

 

 

Figure 2. One Example of Annotation 

 

3.3 Data Analyses 

Two key variables (pauses and lengthening) were measured in the recorded corpus. The detailed 

measurements presented are summarized: 

The measurement of pause was also undertaken in two aspects. One was the comparison in the duration 

of three pauses: utterance internal pause (Uip), pause between utterances in one turn (Pbu), and pauses 

at turn changes (Ptc) in the recorded Chinese EFL learners’ corpus. The other was the measurement on 



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the relationship between the length of pause and probability of turn shift in Chinese learners’ 

conversations. These results were compared with the use of English natives. Through these 

comparisons, the similarities or differences of using pause in turn taking between Chinese learners and 

English natives were illustrated.  

The measurement of the lengthening was undertaken in the comparison of segmental lengthening at the 

turn transition with those final segmental lengthening within a turn in Chinese learners’ conversations. 

This result was compared with the use of English natives. Through the comparison, the similarities or 

differences of using lengthening in turn taking between Chinese learners and English natives were 

described.  

 

4. Results and Discussion 

4.1 The Results of Pauses 

4.1.1 Pause Duration and the Probability of Turn Shift 

Figure 3 shows the relationship of pause duration and the probability of turn shift. Although there are 

slight reductions in the probabilities of turn shift happening on the pauses between 200-299 

milliseconds, 500-599 milliseconds, and 800-899, there is a tendency that the longer the pause 

durations are, the higher probabilities of turn shift. This relationship of pause duration and probability 

of turn shift is statistically significant (X2=162.079, P<0.05). 

 

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Figure 3. Pause Duration and the Probability of Turn Shift 

*All the pause durations are in milliseconds 

 

It is necessary to compare this use of pause in Chinese learners’ conversations with the use in English 

native’s conversations. The comparison between this research and the study of Wennerstrom and Siegel 

(2003) is valid. In addition to the variable of boundary tones, pause in turn taking has been investigated 



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as another variable in the research of Wennerstrom and Siegel (2003). The validity of the comparison of 

two researches is also attributed to two facts: both researches use spontaneous conversations, and the 

conversational form is chat instead of formal discussions.  

Through the comparison, it is found that the relationship of pause duration and the probability of turn 

shift in English native speakers’ conversations is different from that in Chinese learners: in English 

natives’ conversations, “it appears that the probability of turn shift declines slightly within the first .5 

sec of pause duration, and then increases for longer pauses” (Wennerstrom & Siegel, 2003, p. 93). That 

is to say, there is a critical point—500 milliseconds, where the probability of turn shift is the lowest. 

Before this point, the likelihood of turn shift reduces as the pause become longer. After this point, the 

probability of turn shift rises again with the increase of the pause duration. 

In Figure 3, the similar critical point cannot be found at all. In Chinese learners’ conversations, the 

probability in turn shift increases as the pause duration becomes longer. This indicates that Chinese 

learners connect directly and simply the probability of turn shift with the length of pause. Then they 

would use longer and frequent pauses in their conversations to show the intentions of turn yielding. 

Actually, speakers’ intentions of turn-keeping or turn-yielding can be implied by other intonational cues 

instead of excessive pauses in English natives’ conversations. Excessive pauses easily cause disfluency 

and breaks in communication, which would bring disturbances in information transmission.  

4.1.2 The Relationship among Three Kinds of Pauses 

Table 1 shows the relationship of utterance internal pauses (Uip), pause between utterances in one turn 

(Pbu), and pauses at the turn changes (Ptc).  

 

Table 1. The Duration of Three Kinds of Pauses in Turn-taking 

Pause  Number Mean  Median  Mode  Std. dev. 

Uip 1241 370.8815 312 274 265.0209 

Pbu 1161 466.528 378 320 337.8922 

Ptc 317 713.4795 585 353 511.9673 

*Means, median, mode, and standard deviations (Std. dev.) are in milliseconds 

 

It is easy to see from Table 1 that the mean duration of Ptc is the longest, that of Uip is the shortest, and 

that of Pbu is in the middle. In other words, during the process of turn taking in Chinese conversations, 

pauses at the turn changes are longer than utterance internal pauses and pause between utterances in 

one turn. This relationship in duration of the three kinds of pauses is statistically significant by the 

ANOVA test (F=135.121, P<0.05).  

The comparison in terms of the relationship among three kinds of pauses between Chinese EFL 

learners’ use and the English native’s use is of necessity. Bosh et al. (2005) studied the use of pauses 

involved in turn-taking in English natives’ conversations by using the 93 spontaneous telephone 



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dialogues about 15.1hours. They found that “pauses between utterances in one turn (Put) appear 

significantly are longer than utterance internal pauses (Uip) and pauses at the turn changes (Ptc)” 

(Bosch et al. 2005; Jefferson, 1989; Campione & Veronis, 2002 as cited in Bosch et al., 2005, p. 83). 

Comparing Chinese EFL learners’ use and the English native’s use in terms of the relationship among 

three kinds of pauses, it is easy to find out that the use of Chinese EFL learners is quite different from 

that of English native speakers.  

The comparison between this research and Bosh et al.’s (2005) study is also valid. The reasons for the 

validity are similar to those for feasible comparisons between the present research and Wennerstrom 

and Siegel (2003) study in terms of the use of boundary tones and pauses. One of the reasons is that 

both researches use the spontaneous conversations, and the other is that both researches use the 

conversational form of chat.  

However, the difference between face-to-face conversations in the present research and telephone 

dialogues in Bosh et al.’s (2005) study has to be mentioned. Speakers in telephone dialogues make 

greater use of prosodic means to manage turn-taking than they do in face-to-face conversations. This 

difference might be one of the possible reasons for the distinct relationship of three kinds of pauses 

between Chinese EFL learners and English natives.  

There are other factors which could cause such difference, for example, the cooperation between the 

interlocuters, the psychological state of the speakers, etc. It is suggested that all of these factors would 

be further researched in the future studies. 

The two results of investigations on pauses in turn taking above indicate that Chinese learners depend 

mostly on the increase in duration of pauses to imply the intention of turn yielding. Actually, for 

English native speakers, pause is only one of the cues. However, it is not a reliable cue of turn changing. 

English native speakers may pause in the middle of one turn for strategic reasons such as to secure the 

interlocutors’ attention or to show the impression of thoughtfulness (Wennerstrom, 2001, p. 171). Local 

and Kelly (1986) point out that it is phonetic cues directly before a pause, rather than the presence of 

the pause itself, that can show the speaker’s turn-taking intentions. Chinese learners probably have no 

idea about the difference among these three types of pauses and their functions in turn-taking. Besides, 

they are not able to make abundant use of various intonation cues but only employ too many pauses to 

show the intentions of turn yielding. It is also the problem of shortage in prosodic knowledge and the 

deficiency of Chinese learners in using turn-taking strategies.  

4.1.3 Summary of the Results in Pauses 

Through the description of pause duration used in the process of turn-taking in Chinese EFL learners’ 

conversations, it is found that there is a tendency that the longer the pause durations are, the higher 

probabilities of turn shift. Pauses at the turn changes are longer than utterance internal pauses and 

pause between utterances in one turn. These results indicate the excessive dependence on the pause to 

show the turn yielding intentions in Chinese learners’ conversations.  



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4.2 Lengthening of the Final Syllable 

Table 2 shows the relationship of final lengthening before turn changes and within turns. It is easy to 

see that in Chinese learners’ conversations, final lengthening within turns is longer than that before turn 

changes. The difference between these two kinds of lengthening is statistically significant (t=2.217, 

P<0.05). 

 

Table 2. Final Lengthening before Turn Changes and Within Turns 

Final Lengthening Number Mean Std. Deviation 

Within turns 2186 345.0366 140.460213 

Before turn changes 349 329.8138 115.3547862 

*Mean and Std. Deviation are in milliseconds 

 

This pattern is different from that of English native speakers. According to the findings of Culter et al. 

(1986, p. 140), in English conversations, the turn-yielding lengthening should be more prominent or 

greater in duration than utterance final lengthening within turns so as to effectively signal or identify 

the turn-yielding intention of the speakers. The longer final lengthening within turns in Chinese 

learners’ conversations will easily cause the wrong implication of giving up the turn to the listeners. 

This indicates that Chinese learners probably cannot distinguish the uses of final lengthening within 

turns and the lengthening before turn changes. Additionally, the deficiency in using final lengthening 

before turn changes also indicates the weakness in Chinese learners’ ability of using conversational 

strategies. 

In summary, through the investigation of three variables—boundary tones, pause, and lengthening of 

the final syllable, the present research described and assessed Chinese learners’ use of intonation 

features during the process of turn-taking in their English conversations. The results of the investigation 

have been reported in this chapter with some tentative interpretation and discussion followed. 

 

5. Conclusions 

5.1 Major Findings 

This research aims to accomplish two tasks in answering the two research questions. One is describing 

Chinese EFL learners’ use of pause and lengthening in turn taking. The other one is comparing Chinese 

learners’ characteristics with that of English natives. The major findings are presented as follows:  

In terms of pause, there is a tendency in Chinese learners’ conversations that the longer the pause 

durations are, the higher probabilities of turn shift; during the process of turn taking in Chinese 

learners’ conversations, pauses at the turn changes are longer than utterance internal pauses and pause 

between utterances in one turn. These results indicate the excessive dependence on the pause to show 

the turn yielding intentions in Chinese learners’ conversations.  



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In terms of lengthening of the final syllable, in Chinese learners’ conversations, final lengthening 

within turns is significantly longer than that before turn changes. This indicates that Chinese learners 

probably cannot distinguish the uses of final lengthening within turns and the lengthening before turn 

changes. 

5.2 Implications 

This research is expected to have implications in three areas.  

Theoretically, the results of this study are expected to assist second language learners to understand the 

use of English intonation features as communicative strategies and to avoid the misuse in the prosodic 

aspect of their interlanguage. Because these results depict Chinese EFL learners’ use of intonation 

features in conversation organization rather than in their individual use, the description of the use of 

intonation features are prompted at the discourse level. With the assistance of these results, the second 

language learners’ understanding of the prosodic function would be promoted at discourse level. 

Besides, the results of this research have provided a rough description of the prosodic aspect of Chinese 

EFL learners’ interlanguage. These results can be used as references to correct the inappropriate use of 

prosodic means in Chinese learners’ interlanguage.  

Methodologically, the combined and scientific methods would provide references to future researches 

on the prosodic features used in second EFL learners’ spontaneous conversations. Because these results 

are obtained by using the combined methods from Phonology, Conversation Analysis, and Second 

Language Acquisition, the complex analysis of the prosodic features in second EFL learners’ 

spontaneous conversations proves to be feasible by the employment of the approaches from these 

linguistic fields. In addition, the advanced software such as Cool Edit and Praat, and the transcription 

system of ToBI have been used in order to make the present research precise and scientific.  

Practically, the results would be expected to bring benefits to intonation acquisition and teaching. 

Practical implications drawn from the findings of this study are in two areas.  

First of all, in terms of second language acquisition, it is suggested to strengthen the acquisition of the 

supra-segmental features’ differences between Chinese and English. According to the tentative 

discussion in Chapter 4, negative L1 transfer may have caused insufficiency and misuse of intonation 

features. Intonation features play different roles in conversations under different language backgrounds. 

The English intonation features, which imply subtle and crucial meanings in conversations, might 

cause difficulties for Chinese learners. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the learning of 

differences and similarities in supra-segmental features between Chinese and English.  

It is also necessary to increase the knowledge of intonation features, especially those features used as 

communicative strategies or skills. If Chinese learners have not abundant knowledge of intonation 

features, they won’t have foundations to use them sufficiently and appropriately. Attention should be 

given not only to the learning of individual super-segments but also to the acquisition of their functions 

in discourse. Just as Chun (1988) points out, “Intonation is fundamental to genuine communication 



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because communicative competence is the ability not only to formulate grammatically correct utterance, 

but also to signal interactive strategies, such as interrupting, asking for clarification, taking the floor, 

changing the subject, concluding an argument, or constraining a hearer to reply” (pp. 295-303). 

Accordingly, it is of necessity for Chinese EFL learners to learn intonation features as communicative 

strategies or skills in language acquisition.  

Secondly, the results of this study would bring some insight to the teaching of English intonation in 

conversation organization. 

First of all, it is suggested that the awareness of using prosodic features in conversations need to be 

strengthened despite the increasing recognition of the importance in teaching prosodic functions. As Le 

and Han (2006, pp. 20-21) point out, teaching in English pronunciations has developed from the style 

focusing on teaching segmental elements or phonemes, to the style focusing on teaching the 

combination of supra-segmental features and segmental ones. Nevertheless, the teaching in English 

intonation still needs to be improved. Instead of the superficial replication of English natives’ use in 

intonation features, the aim of teaching intonation should be rational. Chinese learners need to master 

not only the separated forms of prosodic features but also their functions in discourse.  

Besides, this study suggests that those methods which emphasize the connections with the training of 

language and communication competence should be increased in English intonation teaching. Some 

practical methods of this kind do exist in current teaching, but they are not systematic or abundant. 

More effective approaches are expected to be found in practical teaching activities and future 

pedagogic researches. 

5.3 Limitations of this Study and Suggestions for Further Research 

This study focuses on two rhythmic features (pauses and lengthening) over the corpus elicited by 

spontaneous interactions of 64 EFL learners. It is suggested that other intonation features such as 

rhythm, key shift, etc., will be researched, and the number of subjects would be enlarged in the future 

studies. 

Moreover, although some similarities and differences between Chinese learners and English natives are 

found out in the use of pauses and lengthening for turn organization, the reasons causing the differences 

are not analyzed systematically. The reasons for the differences and similarities are worthy to be 

explored from cognitive, physiological and other perspectives.  

Additionally, this study puts emphasis on the speakers’ production activity in turn taking. Future studies 

would turn to the perceptional side and see profoundly how the listeners perceive and identify the 

prosodic cues in turn taking.  

In summary, thorough and systematical investigations into Chinese EFL learners’ use of prosodic 

features in conversation organization are suggested for the future research in order to obtain detailed 

descriptions of the supra-segmental aspect of Chinese learners’ interlanguage. Thus, more references to 

language acquisition and teaching could be made for improving the Chinese EFL learners’ 



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communicative proficiency.  

 

Acknowledgments 

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSF Grant No. 20BYY099), 

the Fund for English Teaching from Jiangsu Higher Education Association (2022WJZD006), and the 

Fund for English Lesson Construction from the School of Foreign Studies in Jiangsu Normal 

University (2022YYKC3, 2022YYKC6). 

 

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