Various researchers have shown that second language (L2) speakers have difficulties with marking information structure in English prosodically: They deviate from native speakers not only in terms of pitch accent placement (Grosser, 1997; Gut, 2009; Ramírez Verdugo, 2002) and the type of pitch accent they produce (Wennerstrom, 1994, 1998) but also with regard to the phonetic realization of these pitch accents (Atterer & Ladd, 2004; O’Brien & Gut, 2010). This study investigates the prosodic strategies of first language (L1) Malay speakers of English for marking given and new discourse elements. Ten Malay speakers of English were recorded reading out a 179-word story that contained six given and six new words. Additionally, 10 Malay speakers read aloud a 152-word story containing six given and six new words in Malay. The given-new word pairs were analyzed both auditorily and acoustically in terms of type of pitch accent, syllable duration, phonetic realization of the rise, and pitch peak alignment. The results show that the Malay speakers of English produce longer rises on new than on given discourse elements but do not show different pitch accents, syllable duration, pitch peak alignment, or steepness of rises on the two types of words. The average extent and steepness of the rises as well as the pitch peak alignment are almost identical in Malay and the L2 English of Malay speakers, which suggests direct influence from the L1. However, differences in the type of pitch accents produced and the similarities to the patterns produced by other L2 speakers suggest further influencing factors.

In critical period hypothesis (CPH) research, native speaker (NS) norm groups have often been used to determine whether nonnative speakers (NNSs) were able to score within the NS range of scores. One goal of this article is to investigate what NS samples were used in previous CPH research. The literature review shows that NS control groups tend to be small and highly educated and that detailed background information is usually not provided. Another goal of this article is to investigate how the NS norm group may affect the incidence of nativelike performance by NNSs. To this end, 124 NSs and 118 NNSs of Dutch completed five comprehension tasks and a vocabulary task. On the basis of mean scores and standard deviations, norms were determined for a representative and a nonrepresentative (highly educated) subsample of NSs. Also, separate norms were constructed for the high- and low-frequency items within a task. Exact McNemar tests were used to establish that the incidence of nativelike performance by NNSs was significantly higher if a representative sample norm was used. The results also showed that, insofar as there were effects of frequency, norms based on low-frequency test items tended to be more inclusive. The results imply that the selection of NSs in CPH research deserves more consideration than it has received in the past; they also suggest that NS ceiling performance is potentially useful in determining nativelike performance.

This study examines pitch range production in the read speech of female German second language (L2) learners of English of moderate to advanced proficiency. The study set out to identify to what extent the learners deviated from or adopted the language-appropriate pitch range values of the target language. Two potential ways in which the learners could deviate from or approximate the target were recognized: (a) by globally expanding their pitch range or (b) by adjusting their pitch range in a position-sensitive way that is linked to the phonetic realization patterns of underlying high and low tones at different points in intonation contours.

Results showed that the L2 speakers produced pitch range values that were often language appropriate or approximated the target, although some deviations from the target were also identified. Deviations and target approximation were found to be position sensitive; that is, L2 learners were found to adjust their pitch range differently at the beginning as compared to later parts of intonational phrases.

Although there is consistent evidence that higher levels of processing, such as learning the form-meaning associations specific to the second language (L2), are a source of difficulty in acquiring L2 speech, no study has addressed how these levels interact in shaping L2 perception and production of intonation. We examine the hypothesis of whether access to contextual meaning increases the chances of first language (L1) influence on L2 intonation. To test this hypothesis, we compared the perception and production of sentential English focus by 27 advanced English language learners (n = 13 L1 Mandarin speakers; n = 14 L1 Spanish speakers) and 13 controls, through a series of tasks that promoted different levels of access to meaning. Results showed that L1 transfer was especially clear in Spanish speakers. Not only did they consistently differ from controls in their perception of focalized verbs and subjects, showing their L1 bias to perceive focus at the end of a sentence, but they were also the only group of speakers that inserted pauses after the focalized word, which showed strong L1 effects. Moreover, these L1 transfer effects were more obvious in contextualized tasks, which indicated that facilitating access to meaning by adding context increased L1 transfer effects on the perception and especially on the production of focus intonation.