Second-language learners of French do not acquire habitual pitch values

Abstract

Järvinen et al. (2013) find that native Finnish speakers have higher pitch in English, suggesting that habitual pitch can be learned during second language acquisition. The mean F0 of French may be higher than that of English (Pépiot 2014), and this study investigates whether native speakers of American English who are L2 learners of French show different mean F0 in their second language compared to their first, and whether this is affected by L2 proficiency. The study compared the average F0 in sentences spoken by 6 female L2 French speakers (3 high proficiency, 3 low proficiency) to their English F0, and to the F0 of 6 female L1 French speakers. The L2 French speakers' F0 showed no significant difference from their L1 English, but L1 French F0 was significantly higher than both English and L2 French (p < 0.01 in both cases). There was also no significant difference in F0 between the high-proficiency and low-proficiency L2 French speakers. This indicates that English-speaking L2 learners do not acquire the higher habitual pitch values of French, even as proficiency increases. A comparison with Järvinen et al's findings suggests that adaptation to L2 pitch may not be automatic and may vary by language.