The Pitch Range of Italians and Americans. A Comparative Study

Linguistic experiments have investigated the nature of F0 span and level in cross-linguistic comparisons. However, only few studies have focused on the elaboration of a general-agreed methodology that may provide a unifying approach to the analysis of pitch range (Ladd, 1996; Patterson and Ladd, 1999; Daly and Warren, 2001; Bishop and Keating, 2010; Mennen et al. 2012). Pitch variation is used in different languages to convey different linguistic and paralinguistic meanings that may range from the expression of sentence modality to the marking of emotional and attitudinal nuances (Grice and Baumann, 2007). A number of factors have to be taken into consideration when determining the existence of measurable and reliable differences in pitch values. Daly and Warren (2001) demonstrated the importance of some independent variables such as language, age, body size, speaker sex (female vs. male), socio-cultural background, regional accents, speech task (read sentences vs. spontaneous dialogues), sentence type (questions vs. statements) and measure scales (Hertz, semitones, ERB etc.). Coherently with the model proposed by Mennen et al. (2012), my analysis of pitch range is based on the investigation of LTD (long-term distributional) and linguistic measures. LTD measures deal with the F0 distribution within a speaker’s contour (e.g. F0 minimum, F0 maximum, F0 mean, F0 median, standard deviation, F0 span) while linguistic measures are linked to specific targets within the contour, such as peaks and valleys (e.g. high and low landmarks) and preserve the temporal sequences of pitch contours. This investigation analyzed the characteristics of pitch range production and perception in English sentences uttered by Americans and Italians. Four experiments were conducted to examine different phenomena: i) the contrast between measures of F0 level and span in utterances produced by Americans and Italians (experiments 1-2); ii) the contrast between the pitch range produced by males and females in L1 and L2 (experiment 1); iii) the F0 patterns in different sentence types, that is, yes-no questions, wh-questions, and exclamations (experiment 2); iv) listeners’ evaluations of pitch span in terms of ±interesting, ±excited, ±credible, ±friendly ratings of different sentence types (experiments 3-4); v) the correlation between pitch span of the sentences and the evaluations given by American and Italian listeners (experiment 3); vi) the listeners’ evaluations of pitch span values in manipulated stimuli, whose F0 span was re-synthesized under three conditions: narrow span, original span, and wide span (experiment 4); vii) the different evaluations given to the sentences by male and female listeners. The results of this investigation supported the following generalizations. First, pitch span more than level was found to be a cue for non-nativeness, because L2 speakers of English used a narrower span, compared to the native norm. What is more, the experimental data in the production studies indicated that the mode of sentences was better captured by F0 span than level. Second, the Italian learners of English were influenced by their L1 and transferred L1 pitch range variation into their L2. The English sentences produced by the Italians had overall higher pitch levels and narrower pitch span than those produced by the Americans. In addition, the Italians used overall higher pitch levels when speaking Italian and lower levels when speaking English. Conversely, their pitch span was generally higher in English and lower in Italian. When comparing productions in English, the Italian females used higher F0 levels than the American females; vice versa, the Italian males showed slightly lower F0 levels than the American males. Third, there was a systematic relation between pitch span values and the listeners’ evaluations of the sentences. The two groups of listeners (the Americans and the Italians) rated the stimuli with larger pitch span as more interesting, exciting and credible than the stimuli with narrower pitch span. Thus, the listeners relied on the perceived pitch span to differentiate among the stimuli. Fourth, both the American and the Italian speakers were considered more friendly when the pitch span of their sentences was widened (wide span manipulation) and less friendly when the pitch span was narrowed (narrow span manipulation). This happened in all the stimuli regardless of the native language of the speakers (American vs. Italian)

Leveraging metalinguistic awareness and L1 prosody in the learning of L2 prosody: the case of Mandarin speakers learning English sentence stress

Prosody encodes meanings (Levis & Wichmann, 2015) and significantly influences L2 English speakers' intelligibility and comprehensibility (Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, & Koehler, 1992; Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998). However, L2 English speakers are deficient in using English prosody to realize pragmatic functions (Pickering, 2001; Wennerstrom, 1998), hindering effective communication between L1 English speakers and L2 English speakers. Furthermore, due to the complex and dynamic nature of prosody, English prosody teaching is particularly challenging for teachers. Reed and Michaud (2015) argue that metalinguistic awareness is an essential factor in effective prosody teaching. However, research studies providing empirical support for their claim are lacking. Furthermore, in recent years, an increasing number of research studies discovered similarities between Mandarin and English prosodic features and functions (Chen & Gussenhoven, 2008; Ouyang & Kaiser, 2015), suggesting the possibility to use crosslinguistic transfer to facilitate the teaching of English prosody. However, research studies investigating the efficacy of crosslinguistic based prosody pedagogy are also lacking. This study investigates the role of imitation, metalinguistic awareness, and L1 prosody in English prosody teaching by examining the efficacy of three prosody teaching methods: imitation-based prosody teaching (IT), monolingual metalinguistic awareness- based prosody teaching (mono-MAT) and crosslinguistic metalinguistic awareness-based prosody teaching (cross-MAT). 48 participants were randomized into four groups and received different kinds of intervention: (1) IT, (2) mono-MAT, (3) cross-MAT and (4) interview (control group). Participants' use of English prosody was elicited in a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a two-week delayed posttest by means of a read-aloud task and a picture narrative task eliciting participants' spontaneous speech. Participants' use of sentence stress was rated by six native English speakers based on 9-point Likert scales. The stressed constituents in participants' read-aloud speech were further analyzed regarding average pitch level, pitch range, duration, and intensity. Linear mixed-effects analysis was conducted to compare participants' use of sentence stress across groups and tests. The results suggest that metalinguistic awareness plays a critical role in prosody learning. The results also suggest the advantage of crosslinguistic prosody teaching. This study expands the breadth of pronunciation teaching by exploring the prosodic similarities across languages. This study increases the depth of pronunciation teaching by encouraging a paradigm shift from imitating the prosodic patterns to understanding the connection between the linguistic patterns and the pragmatic functions of prosodic features

The relation between pitch and gestures in a story-telling task

Anecdotal evidence suggests that both pitch range and gestures contribute to the perception of speakers\u2019 liveliness in speech. However, the relation between speakers\u2019 pitch range and gestures has received little attention. It is possible that variations in pitch range might be accompanied by variations in gestures, and vice versa. In second language speech, the relation between pitch range and gestures might also be affected by speakers\u2019 difficulty in speaking the L2. In this pilot study we compare global pitch range and gesture rate in the speech of 3 native Italian speakers, telling the same story once in Italian and twice in English as part of an in-class oral presentation task. The hypothesis tested is that contextual factors, such as speakers\u2019 nervousness with the task, cause speakers to use narrow pitch range and limited gestures; a greater ease with the task, due to its repetition, cause speakers to use a wider pitch range and more gestures. This experimental hypothesis is partially confirmed by the results of this study

The acquisition of English L2 prosody by Italian native speakers: experimental data and pedagogical implications

This paper investigates Yes-No question intonation patterns in English L2, Italian L1, and English L1. The aim is to test the hypothesis that L2 learners may show different acquisition strategies for different dimensions of intonation, and particularly the phonological and phonetic components. The study analyses the nuclear intonation contours of 4 target English words and 4 comparable Italian words consisting of sonorant segments, stressed on the semi-final or final syllable, and occurring in Yes-No questions in sentence-final position (e.g., Will you attend the memorial?, Hai sentito la Melania?). The words were contained in mini-dialogues of question-answer pairs, and read 5 times by 4 Italian speakers (Padova area, North-East Italy) and 3 English female speakers (London area, UK). The results show that: 1) different intonation patterns may be used to realize the same grammatical function; 2) different developmental processes are at work, including transfer of L1 categories and the acquisition of L2 phonological categories. These results suggest that the phonetic dimension of L2 intonation may be more difficult to learn than the phonological one

French Learners of L2 English: Intonation Boundaries and the Marking of Lexical Stress

To test my hypothesis, I collected passages of read speech by thirteen upper intermediate/advanced French learners of English along with the same passage read by ten native English speakers. Two trisyllabics carrying primary stress on the second syllable (com'puter, pro'tection) were placed in a series of intonational contexts under observation. The test-words were then extracted and submitted to native English listeners. The perceptual results show that the predicted ‘challenging’ contexts indeed caused substantial instability in the learners’ placement of lexical stress as perceived by native English listeners

Perception of nonnative tonal contrasts by Mandarin-English and English-Mandarin sequential bilinguals

This study examined the role of acquisition order and crosslinguistic similarity in influencing transfer at the initial stage of perceptually acquiring a tonal third language (L3). Perception of tones in Yoruba and Thai was tested in adult sequential bilinguals representing three different first (L1) and second language (L2) backgrounds: L1 Mandarin-L2 English (MEBs), L1 English-L2 Mandarin (EMBs), and L1 English-L2 intonational/non-tonal (EIBs). MEBs outperformed EMBs and EIBs in discriminating L3 tonal contrasts in both languages, while EMBs showed a small advantage over EIBs on Yoruba. All groups showed better overall discrimination in Thai than Yoruba, but group differences were more robust in Yoruba. MEBs’ and EMBs’ poor discrimination of certain L3 contrasts was further reflected in the L3 tones being perceived as similar to the same Mandarin tone; however, EIBs, with no knowledge of Mandarin, showed many of the same similarity judgments. These findings thus suggest that L1 tonal experience has a particularly facilitative effect in L3 tone perception, but there is also a facilitative effect of L2 tonal experience. Further, crosslinguistic perceptual similarity between L1/L2 and L3 tones, as well as acoustic similarity between different L3 tones, play a significant role at this early stage of L3 tone acquisition.Published versio

Disentangling accent from comprehensibility

The goal of this study was to determine which linguistic aspects of second language speech are related to accent and which to comprehensibility. To address this goal, 19 different speech measures in the oral productions of 40 native French speakers of English were examined in relation to accent and comprehensibility, as rated by 60 novice raters and three experienced teachers. Results showed that both constructs were associated with many speech measures, but that accent was uniquely related to aspects of phonology, including rhythm and segmental and syllable structure accuracy, while comprehensibility was chiefly linked to grammatical accuracy and lexical richness

Deconstructing comprehensibility: identifying the linguistic influences on listeners' L2 comprehensibility ratings

Comprehensibility, a major concept in second language (L2) pronunciation research that denotes listeners’ perceptions of how easily they understand L2 speech, is central to interlocutors’ communicative success in real-world contexts. Although comprehensibility has been modeled in several L2 oral proficiency scales—for example, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)—shortcomings of existing scales (e.g., vague descriptors) reflect limited empirical evidence as to which linguistic aspects influence listeners’ judgments of L2 comprehensibility at different ability levels. To address this gap, a mixed-methods approach was used in the present study to gain a deeper understanding of the linguistic aspects underlying listeners’ L2 comprehensibility ratings. First, speech samples of 40 native French learners of English were analyzed using 19 quantitative speech measures, including segmental, suprasegmental, fluency, lexical, grammatical, and discourse-level variables. These measures were then correlated with 60 native English listeners’ scalar judgments of the speakers’ comprehensibility. Next, three English as a second language (ESL) teachers provided introspective reports on the linguistic aspects of speech that they attended to when judging L2 comprehensibility. Following data triangulation, five speech measures were identified that clearly distinguished between L2 learners at different comprehensibility levels. Lexical richness and fluency measures differentiated between low-level learners; grammatical and discourse-level measures differentiated between high-level learners; and word stress errors discriminated between learners of all levels

The phonetics of second language learning and bilingualism

This chapter provides an overview of major theories and findings in the field of second language (L2) phonetics and phonology. Four main conceptual frameworks are discussed and compared: the Perceptual Assimilation Model-L2, the Native Language Magnet Theory, the Automatic Selection Perception Model, and the Speech Learning Model. These frameworks differ in terms of their empirical focus, including the type of learner (e.g., beginner vs. advanced) and target modality (e.g., perception vs. production), and in terms of their theoretical assumptions, such as the basic unit or window of analysis that is relevant (e.g., articulatory gestures, position-specific allophones). Despite the divergences among these theories, three recurring themes emerge from the literature reviewed. First, the learning of a target L2 structure (segment, prosodic pattern, etc.) is influenced by phonetic and/or phonological similarity to structures in the native language (L1). In particular, L1-L2 similarity exists at multiple levels and does not necessarily benefit L2 outcomes. Second, the role played by certain factors, such as acoustic phonetic similarity between close L1 and L2 sounds, changes over the course of learning, such that advanced learners may differ from novice learners with respect to the effect of a specific variable on observed L2 behavior. Third, the connection between L2 perception and production (insofar as the two are hypothesized to be linked) differs significantly from the perception-production links observed in L1 acquisition. In service of elucidating the predictive differences among these theories, this contribution discusses studies that have investigated L2 perception and/or production primarily at a segmental level. In addition to summarizing the areas in which there is broad consensus, the chapter points out a number of questions which remain a source of debate in the field today.https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uHX9K99Bl31vMZNRWL-YmU7O2p1tG2wHhttps://drive.google.com/open?id=1uHX9K99Bl31vMZNRWL-YmU7O2p1tG2wHhttps://drive.google.com/open?id=1uHX9K99Bl31vMZNRWL-YmU7O2p1tG2wHAccepted manuscriptAccepted manuscrip