Context and Co-Text Influence on the Accuracy Production of Italian L2 Non-Native Sounds

Accuracy in production of non-native sounds is analyzed by considering the influence of L1, context and co-text on Italian L2 speech. While the L1 influence is often described in the literature, careful investigations on how production accuracy may change in different contexts and co-texts are needed. This paper describes two experiments on how French learners of Italian as L2 (advanced/beginners) realize geminates depending on different contexts (the global contexts, e.g., the tasks) and co-texts (the amount of information available syntagmatically). Acoustic data acquired by recording 4 advanced and 4 beginner Italian-L2 learners (and 3 Italian natives as control) were analyzed as for the duration of the target consonant and preceding vowel, as well as speech articulation rate, taken as indexes of geminate production accuracy. Results confirm the strongest influence of L1 in beginners’ production, and depict a complex interplay of context and co- text. Adding information in co-text may induce different effects on speech production, depending on the local context, that is on the speakers’ communication needs during speech production. Specifically, a “rich” co-text may favor a decrease in production accuracy or, on the contrary, an increase, depending on the need the speaker have to highlight/contrast information.