WHY PROSODY AWARENESS TRAINING IS NECESSARY IN TRAINING FUTURE INTERPRETERS

Establishing comprehensive rules and guidelines for speech production and teaching of prosody is difficult compared with the specific second language learner problem in pronunciation which can be easily corrected in second language learning classes. The nature of prosodic features is inherently complicated and because of the complexity of prosodic feature errors, no specific teaching methodology deals with them appropriately and most of the teaching methods are focused on segmental aspects in second language learner’s pronunciation problems. Despite the helpfulness of computer-aided analysis of voice characteristics, there should be cooperation with experts in voice and signal processing in getting conclusions about these aspects. Teaching prosody should be of utmost importance in the interpreter training curriculum. Additionally, in this respect, appropriate materials and data should be chosen carefully according to the learners of mother tongue and the data analysis should be done by professionals to see the gaps in teaching and in students’ learning processes. The choice of methodology in teaching prosody can be an important aspect as well. It should target individual differences among learners in different contexts.