The Relevance of Students’ Musical Skills in Suprasegmental Phonetics
The Relevance of Students’ Musical Skills in Suprasegmental Phonetics

Summary/Abstract: Skills in suprasegmental phonetics of a foreign language are of particular importance for later target language studies, where these skills are an integral part of language learning curriculum. The skills that are generally seen as belonging to suprasegmental phonetics seem to draw on a range of abilities. Specifically, the author of the article hypothesizes that students who have musical skills, or who have undergone musical education are able to better acquire the suprasegmental aspects of a foreign language. The aim of the research was to explore the suprasegmental aspects of English as a foreign language from the point of view of music relation to them. The objectives of the research were to test musically skilled students and students without music skills in suprasegmental phonetics of English and show how music helps training suprasegmental aspects of a foreign language. First year students of English at VPU were asked to complete two tests on entry, midway and end of the Phonetics’ course: a test of musical skill and a test of phonetical skill. Results indicate that there is a significant relationship between student’s musical skill and perception of English supersegmental aspects and that musical pre-tests may have some predictive value in selection of students for phonetics courses.

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