The present study investigates the prosodic features of Jinan EFL learners as they express new vs. given information in terms of accent distribution, phrase segmentation and intonation pattern. According to the present study, under the influence of Jinan dialect, the learners produced errors in the accent position, especially within the multi-syllabic words. Compared with the native speakers, they usually read a sentence with more pauses. Furthermore, they tended to use high tone (H*) or falling tone (H*L) to realize the pitch accent, while the native speakers tended to use low tone (L*) or lowrising (L*H) in a simple declarative sentence.

Index Terms: Jinan dialect, prosodic features, accent distribution, phrase segmentation, intonation pattern