Tone as an Interactional Resource in Vocational English Pronunciation Teaching

Abstract

In vocational English education, pronunciation instruction has traditionally prioritized segmental accuracy and accent-oriented benchmarks, while prosodic features such as tone have received comparatively limited pedagogical attention. Recent research in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and pragmatic phonology, however, suggests that communicative difficulty in workplace interaction often arises not from grammatical inaccuracy, but from misalignment in discourse-level pragmatic expectations. This paper reconceptualizes tone as a teachable interactional resource in vocational English pronunciation teaching. Drawing on Brazil’s discourse intonation framework and recent empirical studies on prosodic-pragmatic instruction, the study examines how tone functions to manage information status, epistemic stance, and interactional roles in task-oriented and institutional discourse. Through expanded qualitative analysis of workplace-relevant examples, the paper demonstrates that distinctions between proclaiming and referring tones function as contextualization cues guiding the construction and revision of common ground. The findings suggest that learners’ limited awareness of discourse-level tone functions contributes to pragmatic misalignment in vocational communication, affecting perceptions of authority, politeness, and cooperation. Rather than treating tonal variation as error, the paper argues for an ELF-oriented pedagogical approach that foregrounds prosodic awareness, accommodation, and communicative effectiveness. Pedagogical implications for vocational English pronunciation teaching are discussed.