Manzoni-Luxenburger, Judith; Andreeva, Bistra; Zahner-Ritter, Katharina
Intonational Patterns under Time Pressure: Phonetic Strategies in Bulgarian Learners of German and English
Proc. Speech Prosody 2024, pp. 369-373, 2024.
Research on the second-language (L2) acquisition of intonation is a growing field but only few studies have (so far) focused on the fine phonetic detail of intonational patterns in the L2. The present study concentrates on the phonetic realization of nuclear intonation contours under time pressure, testing Bulgarian learners in their L2s German and English – two languages in which intonation contours are accommodated differently by native speakers (L1) when little sonorant material is available. In particular, nuclear falling contours (H* L-%) tend to be truncated in L1 German while they are compressed in L1 English. Here we recorded 14 Bulgarian learners in their L2s German and English (within subjects, language order counterbalanced) when producing utterances in a statement context. The target word, a surname placed at the end of the utterance, differed in the available sonorant material (disyllable vs. monosyllables with long and short vowels). Our findings showed that Bulgarian speakers primarily truncate nuclear falling movements ((L+)H* L-%) in both L2s, suggesting transfer irrespective of the target strategy. However, our data show substantial inter- and intra-individual variation which we will discuss, along with factors that might explain this variation.