Email this article Acquisizione delle vocali L2 dell’inglese americano da parte di apprendenti italofoni: un confronto tra training percettivo e training articolatorio con ecografo
Abstract
La realizzazione del contrasto vocalico dell’inglese americano /ɑ-ʌ/ (es. cop-cup) da parte di apprendenti italofoni risulta essere particolarmente difficile in produzione, poiché le differenze fonetiche-fonologiche dei due sistemi linguistici e le regole di conversione grafema-fonema fanno sì che gli apprendenti italofoni realizzino il contrasto L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ utilizzando le vocali native /ɔ-a/ rispettivamente. Lo scopo di questo studio è quello di osservare se un breve training possa aiutare gli apprendenti italofoni a migliorare la produzione delle vocali non native /ɑ-ʌ/. In particolare, si effettuerà un confronto tra un training percettivo e un training articolatorio, effettuato con l’utilizzo di un ecografo, al fine di osservare: 1) gli effetti di entrambi i training sulla realizzazione del contrasto L2 /ɑ-ʌ/; e 2) se il training articolatorio comporti risultati migliori rispetto a quello percettivo. Allo studio hanno partecipato nove studentesse salentine che sono state suddivise, in modo casuale, in tre gruppi: i) tre soggetti hanno preso parte al training percettivo della durata di un’ora (ES-P): ii) tre soggetti hanno partecipato al training articolatorio con ultrasuono della durata di un’ora (ES-US); iii) tre soggetti di controllo che non hanno effettuato alcun tipo di training (CS). I primi due gruppi (ES-P e ES-US) hanno ricevuto istruzioni sulle caratteristiche fonetiche sia delle vocali L2 /ɑ-ʌ/ che delle vocali della L1 /ɔ-a/ nonché sulle loro differenze utilizzando una rappresentazione sul piano cartesiano delle formanti F1 e F2. Successivamente, ciascun gruppo ha effettuato il training: i) i soggetti del gruppo ES-P hanno effettuato un test di identificazione basato sulla procedura High Variability Phonetic Training; ii) i soggetti del gruppo ES-US hanno effettuato un training articolatorio osservando sia un video relativo ai gesti linguali durante la produzione delle vocali /ɑ-ʌ/ da parte di un parlante nativo, sia una visualizzazione dinamica dei movimenti e della posizione della lingua, ottenuta grazie ad una sonda ecografica posizionata sotto il proprio mento. Le partecipanti sono state registrate sia prima che dopo l’addestramento (pre- e post-test) e le loro produzioni sono state analizzate acusticamente misurando il valore delle prime due formanti. I risultati mostrano che nel pre-test tutti le apprendenti realizzano L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ come L1-/ɔ-a/ rispettivamente. Al contrario, nel post-test sono soprattutto le apprendenti che hanno effettuato il training articolatorio riescono a realizzare le vocali L2 in modo differente sia rispetto a quelle realizzate nel pre-test sia rispetto alle vocali della L1. In particolare, un’apprendente produce entrambe le vocali non native in modo più accurato. Il training articolatorio sembra quindi essere più efficace del training percettivo.
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