Prosodic transfer from L1 to L2. Theoretical and methodological issues

Rasier, Laurent [UCL] Hiligsmann, Philippe [UCL]

Much research on the acquisition of phonological skills in a second/foreign language has hitherto been concerned with the phonemes of the target language, thereby disregarding suprasegmentals. The first part of this paper reviews past research on the acquisition of prosody, with special emphasis on the role of the mother tongue in the learning process. Then we set out to examine the methods and tools that were used in order to investigate prosodic transfer. The discussion leads us to propose an alternative method combining text-based contrastive analysis, systembased contrastive analysis and contrastive interlanguage analysis. This method is put to the test in a study of (pitch) accent in L2 Dutch and L2 French.