Accommodation in learner corpora: A case study in phonetic convergence

Abstract

Phonetic convergence is the process by which a speaker adapts his speech to sound more similar to his/her interlocutor. While most studies analyzing this process have been conducted amongst speakers sharing the same language or variety, this preliminary experiment focuses on native/non-native interactions. Segmental (vowel quality) and suprasegmental features (vowel duration and speech rate) were analysed. Results suggest that there was more deviation in the F1 dimension regarding the vowels /æ/ and /ɑ:/. This corroborates Babel’s (2009) results that low vowels tend to be more subject to imitation than high vowels, and especially within the F1 dimension.Convergence in vowel duration in order to sound more native-like and accommodation from all speakers regarding speech rate have also been observed (Zając 2013). Conclusions drawn from this preliminary research study suggest that previous findings on intralanguage processes of accommodation appear to be validated in the case of native/non-native interactions.

Keywords

• accommodation
• convergence
• speech rate
• vowel duration
• F1/F2