Exploring the L1-L2 Relationship in the L2 Acquisition of Prosody*

Laurent Rasier1,2 & Philippe Hiligsmann2

Université catholique de Louvain1 & F.R.S – FNRS2

Abstract

This paper explores the L1-L2 relationship in the L2 acquisition of prosody. The first part of

the paper outlines a method to investigate transfer effects in L2 prosody. Then, we report on

an experiment in which we examined native and non-native speakers’ use of (de)accentuation

to prosodically signal information status in Dutch and French. With the aid of a picture

description task in which the information value of the discourse referents was varied

experimentally, we elicited both L1 and L2 data from 20 French-speaking learners of Dutch

and 20 Dutch-speaking learners of French. The main research question was whether there

would be any relationship between the typological distance between the learners’ L1 and L2

(defined in terms of the “markedness relationships” between the two languages) and the

occurrence of transfer in their use of (de)accentuation. The results reveal considerable

differences between native and non-native speakers on the one hand and between the two

groups of L2 learners on the other hand. More specifically, the results support the view that

markedness is an important factor in predicting and explaining learning difficulties as well as

the cases of prosodic transfer.

* We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-F.N.R.S.). We also thank the participants in the L1-L2-conference (First and second languages: exploring the relationship in pedagogy-related contexts, Oxford, 27-29 March 2009) as well as an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

1. Introduction

The relationship between the mother tongue (L1) and the second language (L2) has been the

object of numerous studies in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research. Much

of the discussion has focussed on so-called transfer phenomena that are generally defined as

“the incorporation of features of the L1 into the knowledge system of the L2 which the learner

is trying to build” (Ellis 1994: 28). After a period in the 1950s-1960s when transfer was seen

as the main cause of learning difficulties and a period in the 1970s when it was denied any

place in the L2 acquisition process, we have now reached a point in the transfer debate where

most authors acknowledge that “despite its sometimes irritatingly elusive character, transfer is

one of the major factors shaping the learner’s interlanguage competence and performance”

(Kohn 1986: 21). Besides, it is also becoming increasingly clear that transfer phenomena need

not be restricted to the learners’ incorporation of L1 elements into their L2 production. As

suggested by Odlin (1989: 27), transfer can also result from “similarities and differences

between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps

imperfectly) acquired”. In other words, transfer is not limited to the influence of L1 on L2, but

can also involve the influence of L2 on L3. Moreover, there are well-documented examples in

the literature in which it is the learners’ L1 that gets influenced by some characteristics of

subsequently acquired languages. Taken together, these findings suggest that transfer should

no longer be seen as a unidirectional phenomenon (as was e.g. the case in Lado’s Contrastive

Analysis Hypothesis; Lado 1957) but as a multidirectional one (see e.g. Pavlenko & Jarvis

2002 on “bidirectional transfer” and Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008 on “forward transfer”, “reverse

transfer”, and “lateral transfer”).

Following Benson (2002: 68), it can be concluded from the above that “transfer does

occur, but is a far more complex phenomenon than hitherto believed”. In order to take this

complexity into account, transfer will be defined here in very general terms, as the cross-lin-

guistic influence, within an individual’s linguistic system, of one (or more) language(s) over

another (see also Gilquin 2008: 4-5)1. Despite intensive research efforts, many questions re-

garding the exact nature of transfer, the circumstances in which it occurs, and the

psychological processes it relies on are still, to a large extent, left unsolved. To give but one

example, instances of L1 influence on L2 performance are well-documented in the area of

phonology where a so-called “foreign accent” is probably the clearest manifestation of the

learner’s L1 in L2 speech. Yet, most research on the acquisition of phonological skills in an

L2 has hitherto concentrated on segmental issues, thereby disregarding suprasegmentals/pro-

sody (e.g. intonation, stress, accent, rhythm; De Bot 1986, Leather & James 1991, Trouvain &

Gute 2007).

This paper investigates transfer effects in the L2 acquisition of prosody. It is organized

as follows. First, we review earlier methodological frameworks in transfer research. It is

argued that they actually left out an important aspect of transfer, i.e. its relation to typology

and more precisely the markedness relationships between the learners’ L1 and L2. Then, we

present an alternative approach in which typological constraints on transfer are taken into

account. The method we propose is illustrated by means of a study of prosodic transfer.

2. Assessing (prosodic) transfer in SLA

The notion of transfer in SLA research is closely related to contrastive analysis (CA). After a

period of disregard, we see nowadays a clear resurgence of CA in SLA research which is

motivated by the view that “you cannot account for SLA just by describing L1, L2 and/or IL.

To account for SLA, you must move to second order application, and compare these” (James

1994: 180). Indeed, as Selinker (1989: 287) observes, “CA is the best place to begin language

transfer studies since structural congruence (or at least, partial structural similarity) is most

1 Grosjean (1998, 2008) suggests that a further distinction should be made between transfer and interference. In his view, transfer is basically static as it reflects permanent traces of one language in the other (as in the case of a foreign accent), whereas interference is dynamic as it refers to elements of another language that incidentally slip into the output of the language being spoken/written (as in the case of occasional pronunciation errors).

probably necessary, though not sufficient, for most types of language transfer to occur”. Not

surprisingly, then, most contemporary approaches seek to combine CA with an in-depth study

of samples of learner language, i.e. interlanguage (IL) (see Rasier & Hiligsmann to appear for

a discussion of recent developments in CA in relationship with SLA research).

In this section, we outline our approach to transfer. The method shares a number of

features with contemporary approaches to transfer (e.g. James 1994, Granger 1996, Jarvis

2000, Gilquin 2008) for it also relies on a combination of contrastive analysis and contrastive

interlanguage analysis. However, there are also a number of differences as our model’s CA

component takes the typological distance between the learners’ L1 and L2 into account, and

its CIA section examines the L2 performance of learners with different target languages.

More specifically, we compare learners in a given learning situation (e.g. French-speaking

learners of Dutch) with learners in the reverse learning situation (e.g. Dutch-speaking learners

of French), and then relate the IL data to data from other categories of learners. To guarantee

the validity of the comparison, care must be taken that the learners all have comparable

profiles.

The first step in our approach consists in a contrastive analysis of comparable data in

the learners’ L1 and L2. To guarantee the comparability of the data, these data have to be

gathered in the same experimental conditions. Then, the L1 and L2 data are related to

comparable data for other typologically (un)related languages so that the typological distance

between the languages under investigation can be determined. This comparison results in a

contrastive-typological description of native speech that has both a predictive and explanatory

value for IL facts.

After contrastively analyzing native speech, we set out to describe the interlanguage

data. Using the data from the native speakers as a point of reference (i.e. control data), we first

describe the IL varieties under investigation to determine what the L2 learners are doing right

or wrong when using the L2. Then, the IL data are compared with each other as well as with

data from other IL varieties (provided these are available), leading to a “contrastive-

typological description of IL”, or, in James’ terminology, “a quantificational contrastive

typology of a number of interlanguages” (James 1994: 187).

Finally, we relate the contrastive-typological descriptions of native and interlanguage

speech to each other in order to get insight into the various forms of transfer in the IL data

(e.g. positive/negative transfer, overuse/underrepresentation).

The following figure summarizes our integrated approach to CA, CIA, and typology.

Figure 1. Integrated approach to CA, CIA, and typology (Rasier & Hiligsmann 2007: 46)

3. Case study: prosodic marking of information status in L2 Dutch and L2 French

This section presents a case study using our integrated approach to transfer. Although our

example deals with a phonological variable in L2 Dutch and L2 French, it is possible to apply

our approach to other languages, other types of transfer (e.g. from L2 to L3), and other phe-

nomena (e.g. syntactic, pragmatic, etc). And while our example comes from spoken language,

Mother tongue (L1)

Target language (L2)

Other natural languages

Interlanguage 1(IL1)

Other interlanguage varieties

Interlanguage 2(IL2)

TRANSFER

Contrastive-typological description of NS

Contrastive-typological description of IL

the approach could also be used in a study of transfer in written language, provided the neces-

sary material is available.

3.1. Background and experimental setup

The prosodic phenomenon we investigate in this case study is (pitch) accent. Contrastive

research on prosody indicates that there are (quite) large differences between languages as far

as their patterns of utterance-level accentuation are concerned. This is especially true for

Germanic and Romance languages that, according to Vallduvi (1991), fall into two groups:

1. Plastic languages. These are languages where contextually important information al-

ways gets accented, whereas contextually less important or contextually known

information does not, e.g. English, Dutch, German.

2. Non-plastic languages. These are languages with a fixed accent distribution that does

not reflect the news value of the sentence elements, and in which one has to use syn-

tactic cues instead in order to signal information status, e.g. French, Spanish, Italian.

We wanted to know if such typological contrasts have an influence on the L2 learners’ use of

(de)accentuation2 to signal information status. We investigated this issue in the L2 speech of

20 (Belgian) French-speaking learners of Dutch and 20 Dutch-speaking learners of French (10

from the Netherlands and 10 from Flanders). All of them were 2nd-year university students of

economics (age: 19-20) who had been studying the L2 in a formal setting for eight years.

Our material consists of noun phrases of the type “indefinite article + adjective +

noun” (Dutch data) and “indefinite article + noun + adjective” (French data). The data were

elicited with a picture description task in which the participants were asked to describe geo-

metrical figures (a circle, a triangle, a star, a square) appearing on a computer screen in dif-

ferent colours (red, yellow, blue, green). All the participants took the test in their L1 and L2

so that we had comparable data in both varieties at our disposal. Using situational contrasts

2 Deaccentuation refers to the fact that “a word that we might expect to be accented fails to be accented in a context where it has recently been used or where the entity to which it refers has recently been mentioned” (Ladd 1996: 175).

(see also Swerts et.al. 2002), the information value of the words was systematically varied, re-

sulting in four conditions: New/New (NN), Given/Contrastive (GC), Contrastive/Given (CG),

Contrastive/Contrastive (CC). A property is defined as “new” when it has not yet been used in

the discourse. It is called “given” when it has already been mentioned in the preceding con-

text. A property that differs from the immediately preceding utterance is called “contrastive”.

We used a perceptive approach in order to assess the presence/absence of accent on a

particular piece of information. The data were first transcribed by the two authors

independently. Then, the transcriptions were compared with each other. In cases of

disagreement, the data were discussed until agreement was reached. We did not cross-check

our transcriptions with the aid of acoustic measurements (see Demers 1994 who advocates

such a ‘mixed/combined’ approach) because the segmental material in the stimuli was

insufficiently controlled for in order to carry out reliable acoustic analyses on the data. All

noun phrases were used for a distributional analysis involving the different kinds of

comparisons discussed in section 2 (see figure 1).

3.2. Step 1: contrastive L1-L2 analysis

The first step in our approach involves a comparison of data in the learners’ L1 and L2. It is

predicted that the L1 French data will be characterized by fixed accentuation and no deaccen-

tuation of contextually given information, whereas the L1 Dutch data will display a close rela-

tionship between the presence/absence of accent on a discourse referent and its contextual

news value as well as a high rate of deaccentuation of contextually given information.

Figure 2 summarizes the results for the L1 Dutch and L1 French data. As expected,

there is a closer association between accentuation and news value in L1 Dutch (Cramer’s V =

0,878; X2 = 319,107; df = 1; p < 0,001) than in L1 French (Cramer’s V = 0,615; X2 =

204,185; df = 1; p < 0,001). This difference can be attributed to the different treatment of con-

textually given information in the two languages. As is apparent from figure 8, it is most of

the time un-/deaccented in L1 Dutch (= 89,45%), but much less so in L1 French (= 66,79%).

News valueImportantGiven

Perc

ent

100.0%

80.0%

60.0%

40.0%

20.0%

0.0%

News valueImportantGiven

LanguageFrenchDutch

92.69%

33.21%

7.31%

66.79%

97.99%

10.55%

2.01%

89.45%

[+accent][-accent]

Accentuation

Figure 2. Relationship between news value and (de)accentuation in L1 Dutch and L1 French

When we examine the accent patterns that were produced by the native speakers of Dutch, we

see that the most frequent accent pattern in each experimental condition reflects the contextual

news value of the words (figure 3). The only exception can be found in the GC-condition

where a fairly high number of cases with a prenuclear accent on the contextually given piece

of information can be found as well. Interestingly, the reverse pattern (i.e. postnuclear accent

on the G-element) hardly ever occurs in the CG-condition.

een RODE driehoekeen rode DRIEHOEKeen RODE DRIEHOEKEEN//RODE//DRIEHOEK

Accentdistributie

Pies show percents

10,00%

90,00%

NN OC

CO CC

50,00%

45,00%

5,00%

97,44%

2,56% 5,00%

95,00%

Figure 3. Accent patterns in L1 Dutch in the four experimental contexts

Moving on to the L1 French data (fig. 4), it appears that the French native speakers produce

the same accent pattern in the four experimental contexts. Traditionally, French is described

as a language with a fixed noun phrase-final accent, but this pattern is largely underrepresen-

ted in our data where the dominant accent pattern in each condition involves a double accent

on the adjective and the noun, i.e. arc accentual (“bridge accent”) instead of accent final

(“final accent”). The data also contain a few instances of arc accentuel étendu (“extended

bridge accent”), i.e. a pattern in which the first accent is realized on the indefinite article and

the second one on the noun, as well instances of accent de focalisation (“narrow focus

accent”) on the contextually contrastive entity in the GC- and CG-conditions. It should be

emphasized, though, that such cases of deaccented G-element are less frequent in L1 French

than in L1 Dutch (GC-condition: 5% vs. 50%; CG-condition: 30% vs. 98%).

un cercle ROUGEun CERCLE rougeun CERCLE ROUGEUN cercle ROUGEUN//CERCLE//ROUGE

Accentdistributie

Pies show percents

10,00%

60,00%

30,00%

NN OC

CO CC

5,00%

60,00%

30,00%

5,00%

1,67%

30,00%

66,67%

1,67% 6,67%3,33%

83,33%

6,67%

Figure 4. Accent patterns in L1 French in the four experimental contexts

Taken together, our L1 data confirm the view that Dutch can be considered as a language with

plastic accentuation3, whereas French appears to have a (quasi) non-plastic accent system.

Indeed, contrary to the claims made in traditional treatments of French accentuation, deaccen-

tuation does occur in French (thanks to the accent de focalisation, i.e. “narrow focus accent”),

be it to a lesser extent than in Dutch but to a higher degree than in Italian where Swerts et.al.

(2002) did not find any single instance of deaccented given information.

3.2. Step 2: contrastive-typological description of native speech

The results of the contrastive L1-L2 analysis in the previous section suggest that structural

principles outweigh pragmatic information in French, while it is the opposite in Dutch. If we

compare Dutch and French with other languages, it appears that many languages have

structural constraints on accentuation, whereas pragmatic factors need not be at play. More

precisely, although accent placement is mainly governed structurally in non-plastic languages,

3 This by no means implies that Dutch does not have any syntactic strategy to express focus meaning. In fact, there are quite a lot of cases in spoken cases where prosodic and syntactic means are used to foreground a con-textually important piece of information (Rasier 2006).

many prosodic systems rely on both structural and pragmatic information in their accent

placement strategies, albeit in a different order of preference (Rasier 2008). But, as can be

seen in figure 5, there does not to be any language where structural constraints are totally

absent and thus where there is a perfect correlation between news value and (de)accentuation.

Figure 5. Typology of accent systems (Rasier 2008: 55)

The data in figure 5 give us an idea of the typological distance between the Dutch and French

accent system. If we combine them with e.g. Eckman’s Markedness Differential Hypothesis

(MDH; Eckman 1987), it is possible to formulate a number of testable predictions/hypotheses

about the L2 learners’ accentuation strategies.

Eckman’s MDH states that a structure A is more marked than B if the existence of A

in a language necessitates the existence of B but B does not need A to exist in a language. In

prosodic terms, this means that pragmatic accentuation rules are more marked than structural

ones. Eckman (1987) also predicts that the more marked a rule is, the more difficult it is to

learn. Pragmatic accentuation rules – and accent systems where such rules have a dominant

position – should therefore be more difficult for L2 learners to acquire than structural ones. In

other words, the Dutch accentuation principles are in Eckman’s terms more marked than the

French ones, and should therefore cause more learning difficulties.

As figure 6 shows, the same kind of reasoning can be applied to individual accent

patterns. In this respect, it is still assumed that accent patterns resulting from the application

of structural rules are less marked than accent distributions that are motivated pragmatically.

Structural rules only

Structural & pragmatic rules

Pragmatic & structural rules

Pragmatic rules only

Portuguese, Italian, Spanish

French, Romanian

English, Dutch, German ?

Figure 6. Typology of accent patterns in Dutch and French (Rasier 2008: 62)

As far as ease of learning is concerned, Eckman (1987) predicts that marked patterns (e.g.

deaccentuation) will be more difficult to learn than unmarked ones (e.g. final accent, bridge

accent). He also states that marked L2 patterns that are less marked than in L1 should not be

difficult. In such a case, Dutch-speaking learners of French should not find it hard to deaccent

contextually given pieces of information in French, whereas French-speaking learners of

Dutch should have much difficulty with that pattern. Finally, Eckman predicts that unmarked

patterns are more likely to be transferred to L2 than marked ones. So, for example, French-

speaking learners of Dutch should transfer the French final accent and bridge accent to their

Dutch interlanguage but not the narrow focus accent (accent de focalisation) of their L1.

3.3. Step 3: contrastive interlanguage analysis

The third step in our approach consists in testing the hypotheses that were formulated on the

basis of the contrastive-typological description of native speech against the IL facts. As

pointed out earlier, we first compare the IL data with the corresponding control data in order

to detect non-native features in L2 performance.

3.3.1. L2 Dutch vs. L1 Dutch

Comparing the accentuation strategies of French-speaking learners of Dutch with the strate-

gies of native speakers, it appears first of all that there is a lower association between news

value and accentuation in L2 Dutch than in L1 Dutch (Cramer’s V = 0,600; X2 = 151,302; df

Unmarked Marked

Structural Struct.-prag. Prag.-struct. Pragmatic

Dutch:- narrow focus- deaccentuation

French:- focus accent- deaccentuation

Dutch:- broad focusFrench:- extended bridge accent

Dutch:- /French:- bridge accent

Dutch:- rhythmic acc.French:- final accent

= 1; p < 0,001 in L2 Dutch vs. Cramer’s V = 0,878 in L1 Dutch). As can be seen in figure 7,

the main difference between the two groups of speakers has to do with their treatment of con-

textually given information. Most of the time, it gets deaccented in native speech but it is less

often the case in the L2 performance of the French-speaking learners of Dutch.

News valueImportantGiven

Perc

ent

100.0%

80.0%

60.0%

40.0%

20.0%

0.0%

News valueImportantGiven

Language backgroundL2 DutchL1 Dutch

98.50%

43.18%

1.50%

56.82%

97.99%

10.55%

2.01%

89.45%

[+accent][-accent]

Accentuation

Figure 7. Relationship between news value and (de)accentuation in L1 and L2 Dutch

The difference between the native and non-native speakers of Dutch is even more striking

when we look at the results for the GC- and CG-conditions in figure 8, i.e. the two experi -

mental contexts where deaccentuation could occur. In comparison with L1 Dutch, the distri-

butions in which the G-element has no accent are clearly underrepresented in the L2 data,

which points to the relative difficulty of deaccenting contextually given information for the

French-speaking learners of Dutch. Indeed, the G-element is deaccented in only 5% of the

cases (vs. 50% in L1 Dutch; X2 = 16,184; df = 1; p < 0,001) in the GC-condition, whereas it is

deaccented in 35% of the cases (vs. 95% in L1 Dutch; X2 = 28,057; df = 1; p < 0,001) in the

CG-condition. Interestingly, deaccentuation is a marked accentuation rule, which according to

Eckman (1987) explains why it causes so much difficulty. Another interesting characteristic

of the French-speaking learners’ L2 speech is the fact that they produce the same default

pattern in all experimental conditions. This pattern involves the accentuation of the adjective

and the noun, and is reminiscent of the French “bridge accent”, i.e. an unmarked pattern.

NN GC

CG CC

een RODE driehoekeen rode DRIEHOEKeen RODE DRIEHOEKEEN//RODE//DRIEHOEK

Accent patterns

Pies show percents

10,00%

90,00%

5,00%5,00%

60,00%

30,00%

50,00%45,00%

5,00% 5,00%

70,00%

25,00%

L1 Dutch L2 DutchLanguage background

97,44%

2,56% 35,00%

50,00%

15,00%

L1 Dutch L2 DutchLanguage background

5,00%

95,00%82,50%

17,50%

Figure 8. Accent patterns in L1 Dutch and L2 Dutch in the four experimental contexts

3.3.2. L2 French vs. L1 French

We now turn to the French interlanguage of the Dutch-speaking informants. Looking at the

relationship between news value and accentuation, it appears that this IL variety comes quite

close to the French target (Cramer’s V = 0,632; X2 = 205,159; df = 1; p < 0,001 in L2 French

vs. Cramer’s V = 0,615 in L1 French) (fig. 9). This result is in line with the prediction that it

may be easier for speakers of a plastic language (such as Dutch) to shift to a non-plastic

language (such as French) then the other way round.

News valueImportantGiven

Perc

ent

100,0%

80,0%

60,0%

40,0%

20,0%

0,0%

News valueImportantGiven

Language backgroundL2 FrenchL1 French

92,69%

32,86%

7,31%

67,14%

94,33%

33,08%

5,67%

66,92%

[+ accent][- accent]

Accentuation

Figure 9. Relationship between news value and (de)accentuation in L1 and L2 French

If we compare the accent patterns that were produced by the native and non-native speakers of

French (fig. 10), we see first of all that the Dutch L2 speakers of French produce the same

default pattern as the native speakers in three out of the four experimental contexts. In this

pattern, the adjective and the noun are both accented, which recalls the French “bridge ac-

cent” and seems to confirm the idea that the French “bridge accent” should not be difficult to

acquire as it is an unmarked accent pattern. Yet, it should be noted that the structural

similarity between the French (unmarked) bridge accent and the Dutch double accent in the

NN-, GC-, and CC-conditions may also have played a facilitating role here. Another crucial

aspect is that the Dutch-speaking learners of French do not find it hard to deaccent

contextually given information in French, and actually overuse this strategy in their L2 speech

(GC-condition: 5% in L1 French vs. 18,42% in L2 French; CG-condition: 30% in L1 French

vs. 56,14% in L2 French).

NN GC

CG CC

un cercle ROUGEun CERCLE rougeun CERCLE ROUGEUN cercle ROUGEUN//CERCLE//ROUGE

Accent patterns

Pies show percents

10,00%

60,00%

30,00%

73,68%

15,79%

10,53% 5,00%

60,00%

30,00%

5,00% 18,42%

57,89%

5,26%

18,42%

L1 French L2 FrenchLanguage background

1,67%30,00%

66,67%

1,67%

56,14%38,60%

5,26%

L1 French L2 FrenchLanguage background

6,67%3,33%

83,33%

6,67%

75,44%

14,04%

10,53%

Figure 10. Accent patterns in L1 French and L2 French in the four experimental conditions

In the next stage, we summarize the main results of the contrastive IL analysis, and relate

them to comparable data for other IL varieties (provided such data are available).

3.4. Step 4: contrastive-typological description of non-native speech

Our interlanguage analysis reveals that it is easier for speakers of a plastic language (i.e.

Dutch) to acquire the accentuation principles of a non-plastic language (i.e. French) than the

other way round (47% contextually adequate accent patterns in L2 Dutch vs. 78% in L2

French; X2 = 35,954; df = 2; p < 0,001; fig. 11). More specifically, our French-speaking lear-

ners of Dutch experience much difficulty in matching the accent distribution to the news va-

lue of the words, and tend to produce the same “default” accent pattern in every experimental

context, which leads to accent distributions that are not always contextually adequate. The

overuse of the “double accent”-pattern also results in the underrepresentation of cases of deac-

cented G-element in the GC- and CG-conditions. Conversely, the Dutch-speaking learners of

French do not find it hard to produce a “bridge accent” in all experimental conditions, al-

though a slight overuse of patterns with a deaccented G-element can be observed in the GC-

and CG-conditions.

Correction levelCont. adequateAcceptableCont. inadequate

Perc

ent

80.0%

60.0%

40.0%

20.0%

0.0%

78.36%

11.70%9.94%

47.14%

18.57%

34.29%

L2 FrenchL2 Dutch

Interlanguage variety

Figure 11. Percentage of contextually inadequate, acceptable, and adequate accent patterns in L2 Dutch and L2 French

Interestingly, the tendency not to match the accentuation to the news value of the words has

also been reported in other IL varieties, e.g. Spanish English (Ramirez Verdugo 2002), Hun-

garian and Polish English (Archibald 1997), Dutch English (Willems 1982). Counterevidence

is provided by Barlow (1998) who reports that his Spanish, Italian, and Chinese learners of

English at different levels of L2 proficiency did not make any mistake when assigning pitch

accent in L2 English. And this holds true for both normal/non-contrastive contexts with a

nuclear accent in default right-most position and contrastive contexts in which the L2 learners

had to move the nuclear accent from its right-most position onto a non-final word. Besides,

Archibald (1997) shows that it is the L1’s main accentuation rule that tends to be transferred

and overused in L2 speech, and two longitudinal studies of German English by Grosser

(1993) and Wieden (1997) report that L2 learners first need to master the English rule for nor-

mal/non-contrastive accentuation, which is essentially motivated structurally, before acquiring

the rule for contrastive accentuation and deaccentuation of contextually given information.

They also observe that their L2 learners tend to overuse the two types of rules before using

them in a contextually adequate way.

3.5. Step 5: transfer analysis

The final step in our approach relates the contrastive-typological description of native and

non-native speech to each other in order to detect and explain the cases of transfer in L2. In

this respect, it was predicted, following Eckman (1987)’s Markedness Differential Hypo-

thesis, that only the marked L1 patterns will be transferred from L1 to L2.

The analysis of the IL data of the French-speaking learners of Dutch reveals that,

contrary to expectation, they do not produce a (unmarked) phrase-final accent in their L24.

Rather, they produce a “double accent” in all experimental conditions5, which recalls the L1

French strategy, i.e. using a “bridge accent” whatever the information value of the words may

be. This leads to accent patterns that are not always contextually adequate and to the underre-

presentation of cases with a deaccented G-element in the GC- and CG-conditions (i.e. nega-

tive transfer). French also has a deaccentuation rule, but it is marked. And this explains why

this pattern does not get transferred to the learners’ interlanguage. Interestingly, this pattern

can also be observed in other interlanguage varieties6, which reinforces the idea that marked

pragmatic accentuation rules are more difficult to acquire than their unmarked structurally-

motivated counterparts. Conversely, the analysis of the L2 French data from the Dutch-spea-

king learners shows that they do not find it difficult to apply the marked deaccentuation rule

of their L2, and even tend to overuse it in comparison with native speech. This can be

explained by the fact that the French deaccentuation rule, despite its marked status, is less

marked than in the learners’ mother tongue.

4 Nor do they in their L1. This may support Di Cristo (1999, 2000)’s contention that the bridge accent is gaining ground in French. An alternative explanation is that the pattern we found in our L1 French data is actually an idiosyncrasy of Belgian French. However, this does not call into question the validity of the IL-L1 comparison.5 Notice that the structural similarity/congruence between the L1 Dutch double accent in the NN-,GC-, and CC-conditions and the L1 French bridge accent may have had a facilitating effect on the production of contextually adequate patterns in these conditions (i.e. positive transfer).6 The results reported in this paper also replicate earlier observations by Hiligsmann & Rasier (2002) and Rasier (2003) in which use was made of a reading task and spontaneous dialogues.

Taken together, these findings confirm the idea that there are qualitative differences in

terms of learning process between unmarked structurally-motivated accentuation rules and

their marked pragmatically-motivated counterparts. There is also supporting evidence for the

claim that such qualitative differences are reflected in the extent to which they are subject to

transfer to and/or over-/underuse in the learners’ L2 speech.

4. Conclusions

This paper investigated the L1-L2 relationship in the L2 acquisition of prosody. We first re-

viewed earlier approaches to transfer in SLA research, and argued that these approaches actu-

ally did not pay (enough) attention to typological constraints on transfer. Then, we proposed

an alternative method in which such constraints are taken into account, and exemplified it in a

study of prosodic transfer in L2 Dutch and L2 French. As it stands, our approach does not

give insight into the communicative consequences of the learners’ (L1-induced) accentuation

strategies. Using perception tests, future work will concentrate on the impact of the learners’

accentuation strategies on the overall acceptability and comprehensibility of their speech.

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