Italian natives’ judgments of French learners’ Italian-L2 speech

Authors

  • Sonia d’Apolito Department of Humanities, University of Salento, Italy Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2021/12/0015/000488

Keywords:

L2-speech dimensions, perception, geminates, context and co-text

Abstract

The present study focuses on perception to observe how Italian listeners judge the singleton/geminate contrast produced by French learners in terms of intelligibility, interpretability, comprehensibility and learners’ effort when producing native/non-native sounds. The important factors are the proficiency level (beginner vs advanced learners), the context, that is the production tasks (target word in isolation and within a phrase) in which also the amount of information available varies (co-text). Results show that advanced learners are more intelligible than the beginners who are perceived to produce the geminates with a lower accuracy and a greater effort. The co-text has a greater impact than the context as, in case of a low pronunciation accuracy, the richness of information helps listeners to understand learners’ intention.

References

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Faber, P., & Léon-Araúz, P. (2016). Specialized knowledge representation and the parametrization of context. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 196.

Munro, M. J. (2011). Intelligibility: Buzzword or buzzworthy? In J. Levis & K. LeVelle (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference (pp. 7-16). Ames, IA: Iowa State University.

Rajadurai, J. (2007). Intelligibility studies: A consideration of empirical and ideological issues. World Englishes, 26(1), 87-98.

Smith, L. E., & Nelson, C. L. (2006). World Englishes and issues of intelligibility. In B. B. Kachru, Y. Kachru, & C. L. Nelson (Eds.), The Handbook of World Englishes (pp. 428-444). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Published

01-01-2021

How to Cite

Italian natives’ judgments of French learners’ Italian-L2 speech. (2021). Linguistic Proceedings Series, 12(1), 57-60. https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2021/12/0015/000488

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