Phonetic Imitation in L2: American English Flap Consonants for Polish learners of L2 English

Phonetic imitation is the process whereby a speaker adjusts spectral and temporal properties of his or her speech towards those of an interlocutor (Babel 2012). Previous research has shown that multiple speech properties are subject to imitation, such as Voice Onset Time, vowel quality and duration, allophonic variants, as well as speaking rate, intensity, or long-term average spectra. Phonetic imitation is gaining interest within L2 speech research, as shown by recent publications in recognised journals (Chen et al. 2023; Rojczyk et al. 2023). We contribute to an understanding of the range and magnitude of imitation in L2 by providing data from imitative productions of AE flap consonants by Polish learners of English. AE flaps are characterised by a single contraction of the tongue, which results in a brief contact with the alveolar ridge in words such as better or Peter. In this study, Polish learners completed three tasks: (1) baseline condition, in which they read orthographic representations of words; (2) imitation, in which they imitate native speakers’ voices reading the words; (3) post-imitation condition, in which they read the words again. The results were analysed in terms of how the production of flaps increased in accuracy of imitation compared to the baseline condition, and how many flap productions were retained in the post-imitation condition. References: Babel, Molly. 2012. Evidence for phonetic and social selectivity in spontaneous phonetic imitation. Journal of Phonetics 40. 177-189. Chen, J., C. T. Best, & M. Antonious. (2023). Phonological and phonetic contributions to Thai-naïve Mandarin and Vietnamese speakers’ imitation of Thai lexical tones: Effects of memory load and stimulus variability. Laboratory Phonology. Online First: https://doi.org/10.16995/labphon.6435. Rojczyk, A., P. Šturm, J. Przedlacka. (2023). Phonetic imitation in L2 speech: Immediate imitation of English consonant glottalization by speakers of Polish. Language Acquisition. Online First: https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2023.2253545.