Native English speakers learning German as a second language: Devoicing of word-final voiced stop targets

Abstract

In contrast to German and other languages that devoice underlying word-final, voiced obstruent targets, English has a surface contrast between voiced and voiceless obstruents. The present study investigated the issue of what occurs when native speakers of American English, in an early stage of learning German as a second language, produce word-final voiced and voiceless stop targets in German versus English. The fact that the underlying voicing contrast in German is reflected orthographically (e.g., “Tod” versus “tot”) could make it difficult for native speakers of English to learn to devoice German word-final, voiced targets. The findings indicate that many of the 12 native English learners of German who were studied showed a tendency toward devoicing voiced targets in German relative to their productions of orthographically-similar words in English (e.g., “toad” and “tote”). In general, their partial devoicing in German (relative to their English productions) occurred due to a combination of producing somewhat shorter vowels before voiced consonant targets, reducing glottal pulsing during the closure of voiced consonant targets and/or shortening voiceless consonant closure durations. Subjects who produced more characteristically “voiced” consonants when speaking English (e.g., longer preceding vowel durations, etc.) tended to devoice German final stops to a lesser extent.