28.2878, Diss: Studio acustico-percettivo di contrasti fonemici dell'italiano L2. Migranti culturali a confronto/An acoustic and perceptual study of L2 Italian phonemic contrasts: two cases of cultural migrants

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2878. Fri Jun 30 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.2878, Diss: Studio acustico-percettivo di contrasti fonemici dell'italiano L2. Migranti culturali a confronto/An acoustic and perceptual study of L2 Italian phonemic contrasts: two cases of cultural migrants

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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2017 12:46:11
From: Manuela Frontera [manuela.frontera at unical.it]
Subject: Studio acustico-percettivo di contrasti fonemici dell'italiano L2. Migranti culturali a confronto/An acoustic and perceptual study of L2 Italian phonemic contrasts: two cases of cultural migrants

 
Institution: Università degli Studi della Calabria 
Program: Politics, Culture and Development 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2017 

Author: Manuela Frontera

Dissertation Title: Studio acustico-percettivo di contrasti fonemici
dell'italiano L2. Migranti culturali a confronto/An
acoustic and perceptual study of L2 Italian phonemic
contrasts: two cases of cultural migrants 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Phonetics
                     Phonology
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): Arabic, Standard (arb)
                     Italian (ita)
                     Romanian (ron)

Language Family(ies): Romance
                      Semitic 


Dissertation Director(s):
Luciano Romito

Dissertation Abstract:

Studies on variation in Italian L2 are still sparse and they have mainly
focused on suprasegmental, rhythmic and prosodic features, while little
attention has been devoted to segmental pronunciation fundamentals and
phonological acquisition so far. Moreover, investigations have mostly involved
early bilingual infants, naïve speakers or less educated adult learners,
without taking into account possible motivational factors affecting the
competence of mature or highly educated subjects.

This research aims at enhancing the landscape of variation in Italian L2,
assessing perceptual and productive competence of Arabic and Romanian cultural
migrants living in Italy, by focusing on specific troublesome Italian phonemic
contrasts, namely final unstressed vowels /i e / and /u o/, bilabial stop
consonants /p b/ and alveolar affricates /ʦ ʣ/.

After creating and conducting a survey, 64 subjects have been selected and
motivational indexes computed for each of them, in order to objectify their
effective propensity to improve L2 Italian pronunciation accuracy and define
levels of linguistic motivation. Secondly, L2 learners’ phonological
competence has been assessed through identification and AXB categorical
discrimination tasks. The same oppositions have been tested in the production
of vowel and consonant segments, inserted in nonsense words and into guide
sentences. The analyses have been executed by measuring vowel acoustic values
(formants and duration), compared to those obtained by native Italians, and
evaluating consonant productions quantitatively and qualitatively. For both
perceptual and productive tasks, the weight of typological, linguistic and
social variables has been taken into account by means of ANOVA comparisons and
correlation analyses within the gathered data. Lastly, native Italian speakers
have been asked to judge the levels of pronunciation accuracy and foreign
accent perceived
in cultural migrants’ speech, elicited through a sentence-reading task and
according to different motivational levels (moderate or high), length of
residence (0-12 months, 1-3 years, more than 3 years) and linguistic typology
of the speakers.

The results have indicated an advanced phonological acquisition level for both
Arabic and Romanian speakers, showing good-to-excellent categorization skills,
proximity to L1 Italian vowel space conformation and scarce percentages of
errors in consonant production. Despite some cases of traceable interference,
the subjects correctly discern and produce similar and new sounds with a lower
margin of error for Romanians. The ANOVAs have revealed a stable implication
between variables, so that macro-social factors systematically give up to the
linguistic ones, firstly typological then phonological. Nevertheless, the
speakers’ foreign accent is still perceivable, even if it seems to decrease
with rising motivational levels and length of residence.

The new provided data can find application in ad hoc didactic paths and focus
on perception/production activities. They can be used to implement speech
recognition technologies (automatic call-centers, voice recognition systems
based on Italian L1 use).
Finally, acoustic data and sociolinguistic analyses can help in supplying
identification linguistic profiles for forensic purposes.




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