Accuracy, context and co-text in Italian L2 speech

The production of affricates by French learners

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of L1 as well as the influence of the context and co-text on the production accuracy of non-native sounds. Specifically, it deals with how accurate French learners of Italian L2 (advanced and beginners) are in realizing the Italian affricates as non-native sounds, in different tasks (global contexts) and varying the amount of information available in the text (co-text). Acoustic data are analysed as for the duration of the target consonants and the following vowels as well as for the speech rate, taken as indexes of affricate production accuracy. Apart from the influence of the L1, above all for beginners, results show that co-text more than context affects speech accuracy. Specifically, co-textual information affects speech rate and speech accuracy, in that speakers modulate their attention and effort according to their communication needs.