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15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)Barcelona, Spain |
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15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)Barcelona, Spain |
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After measuring contextual and prosodic vowel (V) length in native speakers, two groups of Italian students were compared to them, to see whether those exposed to naturalistic input fared better than traditionally taught ones. Naturalistic input implied residence abroad for one year (while a control group attended classes in a formal university setting). In native speech Vs were longer when followed by voiced consonants (Cs) and in monosyllabic words. The behaviour of L2 speakers showed some departure from the native model in that Foot-structure was not as influential and following C-voicing was only effective to a lesser degree; in all, the naturalistic input learners fared better. Therefore, mastering these V-lengthening mechanisms, albeit not too awkward for Italians, still needs naturalistic input.
Bibliographic reference. Azzaro, Gabriele (2003): "Unnatural rhythm. English vowel length in Italian students", In ICPhS-15, 1573-1576.