Slide 2 Literacy and prosody The case of low-literate Senegalese
learners of L2 Italian Marta Maffia and Anna De Meo University of
Naples LOrientale LESLLA Conference Nijmegen, 28-30 August 2014
Slide 3 Outline of the talk Introductory issues Research questions
The study Conclusions Implications for L2 Italian teaching Literacy
and oracy in L1 and L2 Low-literate learners Prosodic competence
Literacy in Senegal The Senegalese immigration Speakers Task
Perceptive and Spectroacoustic analyses Results Slide 4 Bigelow
& Tarone 2004 Koda 2005, Wang, Koda & Perfetti 2003,
Bialystok 2002, Cummins 1991, Collier 1989 Studies on literacy and
phonological awareness in L1 Morais et al. 1979, 1986; Adrian et
al. 1995; Reis & Castro Caldas 1997; Dellatolas et al. 2003 L1
Literacy and L2 Oracy: simplifying vs elaborating path ( Tarone,
Bigelow & Hansen 2009) Development of oral skills during
classroom practice (Strube, van de Craats, van Hout 2013) Slide 5
The prosodic competence No attention has been given to literacy and
prosody, despite the growing interest toward the prosodic aspects
of interlanguage: Prosodic tranfer Prosody and speech acts Prosody
and emotional states Aoyama - Guion 2007; Trouvain - Gute 2007; De
Meo - Pettorino 2011; Maffia et al. 2014 Slide 6 Literacy in
Senegal Adult literacy rates below 50% (UNESCO 2012) L1: Wolof,
Pulaar, Diola Orality L2: French or Arabic Literacy French
SchoolKoranic School Different educational approaches Fall 2011,
Cisse 2005, Gandolfi 2003 Slide 7 The Senegalese immigration in
Naples Individual migration and instability The profile of the
Senegalese immigrant SexMale AgeOver 35 Marital statusUnmarried
FamilySenegal Issue of the permitSelf employment Maffia et al.,
paper presented in 2013 Slide 8 Research questions What is the
relationship between L1 literacy and L2 oral skills in the case of
low-literate Senegalese immigrants learners of L2 italian? Do the
different models of literacy in L1 have a diversificate effect on
the development of the prosodic competence (intonation and rhythm)
in L2? In teaching L2 Italian, is it possible to take in account
the different skills developed by learners in their L1 literacy
processes? Slide 9 The speakers The learners (L2 Italian) The
control group (L1 Italian) N. 205 Sex MM Mean Age 3129 Nationality
SenegaleseItalian Educational background 10 French school (FS) 10
Koranic school (KS) - Years in Italy From 1 to 6- Slide 10 The
school attended is not necessarily linked to a high competence
level in the language used as vehicle of literacy (Arabic or
French). The linguistic competences Wolof A1/A2 - CEFR Koran (no
comunicative competence) 0-2 ( levels of OECD - Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development ) according to a literacy
test evaluated by experts Slide 11 The elicited imitation task 18
L1 Italian stimuli Male and female voices (Lazio and Campania
Region) Different degrees of complexity: sentence length,
morphosyntactic structure, lexical frequency, pitch contour.
Christensen et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2010 Assertions, questions,
orders Random order No visual support! The task was successfully
performed by the native Italian control group. The task
Participants were asked to listen to Italian stimuli only once and
to imitate them, regardless of the understanding of their meaning.
Slide 12 The model voices Simple Utterance Complex Utterance - 6
syll. - Simple morphosyntactic structure - Fundamental vocabulary -
Question - 20 syll. - Complex morphosyntactic structure - Non-basic
vocabulary - Question Slide 13 The corpus 324 utterances 12 x 20
senegalese 12 x 5 italians 12 x 2 model voices Totally about 3000
syllables were computed and about 10 minutes of speech were
analysed. divided in 2 levels of complexity: 1: 5 10 syll. 2: 11 20
syll. Slide 14 The analyses The perceptive analysis 10 Italian
native speakers (9F, 1M) Experienced teachers of L2 Italian No
competence in phonetics They were asked to transcribe the
imitations and to rate them in terms of: - accuracy - type of
errors + prosodic performance The spectroacoustic analysis Duration
of segments (sec) Duration of syllables (sec) Durations of silent
pauses (sec) F1 and F2 of vowels F0 of vowels (Hertz semitones)
Wavesurfer 1.8 Praat Slide 15 SIMPLE UTTERANCES (5-10 syll.) Slide
16 SIMPLE UTTERANCES Input and imitations Model FS KS Both groups
of learners could easily memorize and imitate the model utterances
at least from the textual point of view Slide 17 SIMPLE UTTERANCES
The perceptive analysis - accuracy 54% 48% Correct imitations Slide
18 Segmental pronunciation OtherMorphosyntactic Lexical SIMPLE
UTTERANCES The perceptive analysis type of errors Slide 19 A scale
from 1 to 3: 1: no prosodic imitation 2: partial prosodic imitation
3: effective prosodic imitation AssertionQuestionOrder FS2.41.82.1
KS2.11.52.1 SIMPLE UTTERANCES The perceptive analysis prosodic
performance Slide 20 Corpus: level 1 (5-10 syll.) r correlation
coefficient Rilliard et al. 2011, Hermes 1998 Average values of F0
Standard deviation Tonal Range SIMPLE UTTERANCES The
spectroacoustic analysis - intonational level Slide 21 Models
Imitation st. d. KS ITA ASSERTION av. val. FS female model QUESTION
Slide 22 AssertionQuestionOrder r mod FS0.650.370.77 r mod
KS0.710.480.77 r mod ita0.880.820.88 Mean values of r correlation
coefficient between model utterances and imitations for group of
speakers and speech act. r correlation coefficient As for pitch
contour and tonal range, learners from Koranic school seem to
better imitate simple and short utterances SIMPLE UTTERANCES The
spectroacoustic analysis - results Slide 23 Not enough time is
spent to give proper attention to the suprasegmental level in L2
Italian classroom Poor prosodic sensitivity of L2 Italian teachers
They are not able to recognize and valorize the prosodic skills of
(some) learners They just focus on prosodic macro-categories (as
questions) Further research is needed Contradiction between the
results of the perceptive analysis and those of the spectroacoustic
analysis. Slide 24 COMPLEX UTTERANCES (11-20 syll.) Slide 25 All
the learners found the utterances difficult to imitate because of
their basic competence in L2 Italian and the lower effect of
short-term memory. But the two groups performed the task in a
different way Model FS Model KS COMPLEX UTTERANCES Input and
imitations Slide 26 No correct imitations COMPLEX UTTERANCES The
perceptive analysis - accuracy Slide 27 Segmental pronunciation
OtherMorphosyntactic Lexical COMPLEX UTTERANCES The perceptive
analysis type of errors Slide 28 A scale from 1 to 3: 1: no
prosodic imitation 2: partial prosodic imitation 3: effective
prosodic imitation AssertionQuestionOrder FS1.41.31.5 KS1.51.41.6
COMPLEX UTTERANCES The perceptive analysis prosodic performance
Slide 29 COMPLEX UTTERANCES French School - partial imitations
ModelsImitations 1. Interruptions 2. Silent pauses 3. Repetitions
4. Substitutions Slide 30 COMPLEX UTTERANCES Koranic School -
partial imitations BEGINNING ModelsImitations END MUMBLING Slide 31
COMPLEX UTTERANCES The spectroacoustic analysis - the mumbling
Syllable structure: CV Stops, nasal and fricative + central vowel
Regular rhythmical structure Flat pitch contour Slide 32
Conclusions The results of the spectroacoustic analysis indicate
that there is a relationship between the model of literacy in the
L1 and the development of oral skills in the L2. Complex
interaction among two levels Rhythmic-ProsodicTextual Slide 33
Conclusions Complex interaction among two levels In the imitations
of learners from French School the textual level is characterized
by a higher level of accuracy. When they cant memorize the text,
also rhythm and intonation are not reproduced. Textual
Rhythmic-Prosodic Slide 34 Conclusions Learners from Koranic school
can better imitate the pitch contour and rhythm of simple and short
utterances. The rhythmical level resists even in the absence of
text and intonation (mumbling). Textual Rhythmic-Prosodic Complex
interaction among two levels Slide 35 Some implications for L2
Italian teaching A greater and more trained sensitivity to the
suprasegmental level is required for L2 (Italian) teachers. More
time needs to be spent on teaching prosody in L2 (Italian)
classrooms. Different language teaching methods for L2 Italian have
to be used in order to valorize different skills developed by
different learners (even in the case of low-literate speakers) in
their previous educational path. Slide 36 Thanks for your
attention! {mmaffia;ademeo} @unior.it
