Does first language prosodic transfer affect second language prosody?

Abstract

Learners of English have been found to transfer their L1 prosody into the prosody of L2 (Ramírez Verdugo, 2006). However, the effect of this transfer is not known or may not be universal. Besides, while English uses fundamental frequency in its intonation system, to indicate prominence in syllables and in phrases, and to signal differences in sentence intonation, Awutu uses it to signal lexical tone, a common phenomenon of tone languages. The present study investigates the effect of transfer of some prosodic features of Awutu, a language of Ghana, on English. To achieve this, 10 speakers of Awutu who are non-native speakers of English were asked to read narrow and broad focus statements and questions in both Awutu and English. The data were subjected to acoustic analysis for fundamental frequency using the Computerized Speech Laboratory. Preliminary findings show that Awutu speakers of English raise their fundamental frequency on focused words to show prominence. However, the pitch tracks of both statements and questions show that even though these speakers transfer some sentence prosody from Awutu, they do not show any consistency in the transfer. These findings suggest that the nature of L1 prosodic transfer into L2 may be language-specific.