Prosodic and Rhythmic Aspects of L2 Acquisition

The Case of Italian

Edited By: Anna De Meo

£49.99

This is the first survey of interlanguage prosody research in L2 Italian. Prosodic competence is crucial for non-native pronunciation and message understanding. The volume covers L1 transfer, pragmatics, and technology in second language teaching.

In recent years, prosodic competence has become increasingly important in second language acquisition studies, as it is a crucial element in the identification of non-native…

In recent years, prosodic competence has become increasingly important in second language acquisition studies, as it is a crucial element in the identification of non-native pronunciation and message understanding. This volume is the first attempt to provide a survey of interlanguage prosody research in L2 Italian. It begins with an overview of the possible approaches to the study of rhythmic-prosodic skills acquisition in an L2. The second part of the book emphasizes the relationship between the mother tongue and a second language, and investigates the presence of transfer in prosody interlanguage development. The third part illustrates prosody’s role in the interpretation of pragmatic meaning in native-non-native interaction, and its influence on message persuasiveness. And in the fourth part, technology meets prosody in the areas of second language teaching and speech synthesis.

Anna De Meo is Professor of Multiculturality and Language Acquisition at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. Her main fields of interest are L2 acquisition, L2 speech perception and production, and interlanguage pragmatics.

Massimo Pettorino is Professor of Experimental Phonetics at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, and Director of the GSCP, a special interest group on spoken communication of the Italian Linguistic Society (SLI). He works in the field of acoustic analysis of speech.