Abstract
The aim of this study was to test whether both phonetic and phonological representations of intonation can be rapidly modified when imitating utterances belonging to a different regional variety of the same language. Our main hypothesis was that tonal alignment, just as other phonetic features of speech, would be rapidly modified by Italian speakers when imitating pitch accents of a different (Southern) variety of Italian. In particular, we tested whether Bari Italian (BI) speakers would produce later peaks for their native rising L + H* (question pitch accent) in the process of imitating Neapolitan Italian (NI) rising L* + H accents. Also, we tested whether BI speakers are able to modify other phonetic properties (pitch level) as well as phonological characteristics (changes in tonal composition) of the same contour. In a follow-up study, we tested if the reverse was also true, i.e., whether NI speakers would produce earlier peaks within the L* + H accent in the process of imitating the L + H* of BI questions, despite the presence of a contrast between two rising accents in this variety. Our results show that phonetic detail of tonal alignment can be successfully modified by both BI and NI speakers when imitating a model speaker of the other variety. The hypothesis of a selective imitation process preventing alignment modifications in NI was hence not supported. Moreover the effect was significantly stronger for low frequency words. Participants were also able to imitate other phonetic cues, in that they modified global utterance pitch level. Concerning phonological convergence, speakers modified the tonal specification of the edge tones in order to resemble that of the other variety by either suppressing or increasing the presence of a final H%. Hence, our data show that intonation imitation leads to fast modification of both phonetic and phonological intonation representations including detail of tonal alignment and pitch scaling.
Highlights
A large body of literature has shown that segmental features of speech can either subconsciously or consciously be imitated in the process of online phonetic convergence (Fowler et al, 2003; Pardo, 2006; Nielsen, 2011; inter alia)
GENERAL DISCUSSION Our results show that phonetic detail of intonational structure such as tonal alignment can be successfully imitated across two Southern varieties of Italian, i.e., Bari Italian (BI) and Neapolitan Italian (NI)
BI speakers were able to displace their H peaks later in order to imitate the model NI speaker in the Imitation phase, while NI speakers were able to shift H peaks earlier to imitate the model BI speaker. This is surprising given that details of tonal alignment are not learned and reproduced by L2 speakers (Mennen, 2004) and might be taken to suggest higher sensitivity to phonetic detail within dialects of the same language than across languages
Summary
A large body of literature has shown that segmental features of speech can either subconsciously or consciously be imitated in the process of online phonetic convergence (Fowler et al, 2003; Pardo, 2006; Nielsen, 2011; inter alia). Various studies within the segmental literature have established that speakers are capable to modulate phonetic detail of their own speech in order to resemble that of speech to which they have previously been exposed (Goldinger, 1998; Nielsen, 2011). Note that in an episodic or “exemplar” model, every perceived spoken item leaves a unique memory or “episodic” trace in which detailed phonetic characteristics, such as the voice of the speaker, are stored All these previous studies concern single word imitation, and not sentences nor phrases, and do not address possible modifications relative to the suprasegmental level. In this study we ask whether intonation representations can be rapidly modified as a result of phonetic and phonological convergence
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