Extract

Abstract

In this article we investigate the production of /h/ by French learners of German. Based on the analysis of a learner corpus, the results indicate that French speakers encounter some difficulties producing /h/ native-like. First, they do so less often than native speakers, and the strategies they use when /h/ is omitted differ from native speakers’ strategies. With advanced proficiency, /h/-production is mastered better. However, when French speakers produce /h/ it also differs from native German /h/. Acoustic measurements (based on duration and intensity ratios) show that in general, French speakers hyperarticulate /h/. The findings reported here can be used in language teaching to reduce the amount of accentuation.

Keywords

Second language acquisition, interference, L2, speech production, learner corpus, German, French

*   Corresponding author: zimmerer@coli.uni-saarland.de, Tel: +49 681 302 3419, Fax: +49 681 302 4684

a   Phonetics, Saarland University, Campus, C7.2, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany ← 303 | 304 →

1.0   Introduction

When adults learn a foreign language, achieving native-like proficiency is very hard. Especially pronunciation seems to be problematic to acquire after adolescence. The phonetic and phonological system of the native language interferes very often with the phonetic and phonological set up of the foreign language (e.g. among many others Flege et al., 1994; Flege, 1995; Best, 1995; Brown, 1998; Best & Tyler, 2007). Depending on the two systems in question, some segmental and suprasegmental contrasts are hard (maybe even almost impossible) to learn completely...