Phonetic Imitation of Vowel Duration in L2 Speech

• Authors: Magdalena Zając
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper reports the results of a pilot study concerned with phonetic imitation in the speech of Polish learners of English. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether native speakers of Polish imitate the length of English vowels and to determine whether the extent of phonetic imitation may be influenced by the model talker being a native or a non-native speaker of English. The participants were asked to perform an auditory naming task in which they indentified objects and actions presented on a set of photos twice, with and without the imitation task. The imitation task was further sub-divided depending on the model talker being a native or non-native speaker of English (a native Southern British English speaker and a native Polish speaker fluent in English). As the aim was to investigate the variability in durational characteristics of English vowels, the series of front vowels /æ e ɪ iː/ were analysed in the shortening and lengthening b_t vs. b_d contexts. The results of the study show that the participants imitated the length of the investigated vowels as a result of exposure to the two model talkers. The data suggest that the degree of imitation was mediated both by linguistic and social factors and that the direction of convergence might have been affected by the participants’ attitude toward L2 pronunciation.

Keywords

EN

phonetic imitation; phonetic convergence; phonetic accommodation; L2 pronunciation; vowel lenght in L2 pronunciation; pre-fortis clipping in L2 pronunciation; Polish learners of English; social factors affecting phonetic imitation; linguistic factors affecting phonetic imitation

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Research in Language
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 19-29

Dates

published

2013-03-01

online

2013-05-04

Contributors

author

Magdalena Zając

• University of Łódź

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10015-012-0009-5