The Italian INFLUENCE OF ITALIAN

Language and Its ON STANDARD

Effects on Standard AMERICAN ENGLISH
SPEECH SOUNDS
American English PHONETIC INVENTORY
English
VOW ELS
Italian
English-only vowels become closer
approximations to Italian vowels
?/ / dz/ i.e. / æ/ becomes / a/ ; / ?/ becomes / i/
/ ?/ / ð/
/ ?/ / o/ / e/ /b/ /d/ /d?/ / ?/ / h/
/ a/ / ts/ /f/ /g/ /k/ /l/
/ æ/ / ?/
/m/ /n/ /?/ / ?/ / ?/
/ r/ - rolled /p/ /s/ /?/ /t/ / r/
/t?/ /v/ /z/ /j/
Double /w/ /?/ /i/ Rhotic
consonants /?/ u/ Vowels

The Italian language is a Romance

language spoken by over 60,000,000 people.
It is the official language of Italy and spoken
in France, Croatia, and Slovenia. The dialect
groups of Italian are: Northern Italian, or
Gallo-Italian; Venetian, spoken in
northeastern Italy; Tuscan (including
Corsican); and three related groups from
southern and eastern Italy? (1) the dialects
of the Marche, Umbria, and Rome, (2) those
of Abruzzi, Puglia (Apulia), Naples,
Campania, and Lucania, and (3) those of
Calabria, Otranto, and Sicily. The sound
system is similar to the sounds of Latin and
Spanish. The grammar is similar to other
modern Romance languages. Outside of
Italy, the dialects are highly influenced by
contact with other languages.
(Italian Language, 2015).
PHONETIC CONSTRAINTS
The following are phonetic constraints of Italian: CONSONANTS
Patterns of English-Language Learners:
- Plosives are unaspirated
- / z/ and / s/ only contrast inter-vocalically - Derhotocization
- W ords do not end in consonants - Epenthesis (word final)
- No lengthening in word final stressed vowels - Final consonant deletion
- Only five vowels can be in the non-final - Initial consonant deletion of / h/
unstressed position - [ieaou] - Addition of word-initial / h/
- Stopping of / ?/ and / ð/
(Bertinetto & Loporcaro, 2005). - Intervocalic voicing of / s/
- Sooner onset of voicing following
voiceless stop
- This could result in a voiceless
stop sounding voiced to the
SAE speaker
(Bertinetto & Loporcaro, 2005).
GRAMMAR
Verbs:
Italian consists of five verb tenses: present, imperfect,
simple past, future, and conditional. Italian does not use
each tense in exactly the same ways that SAE does. For
example:
- Italians use the present perfect to refer to generally
refer to the past, whereas SAE uses the simple past
in this context. In contrast, Italian's simple past is
used to refer only to the very remote past. A
common mistake of Italians learning SAE might be I
haveeaten pizza yesterday instead of I atepizza
yesterday.
- Italians use present tense in contexts where SAE
uses present progressive. A common mistake of
Italians learning SAE might be I gotothestorenow
instead of I amgoing tothestorenow.
W hen Italians speak SAE, they often overuse the verb
"must." This is because the verb "dovere" in Italian can be
spoken with different inflections, encompassing must, ought
to, want to, should, might.
Italian does not have an equivalent of the auxiliary verb do.
Common mistakes of Italians learning SAE might be Have
you a pen?instead of Doyou havea pen?, and I havenot a pen
instead of I don't havea pen.
Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives:
In Italian, all nouns and pronouns are assigned a gender.
Adjectives and articles agree with the accompanying noun
in gender and number. This would not result in errors to
Italians learning SAE because SAE is simpler in this regard.
In Italian, the subject pronoun is not required, and using the
subject pronoun indicates emphasis. In SAE, the subject
pronoun is required.
Direct and indirect object pronouns precede the verb in
Italian, whereas they follow the verb in SAE.
Adjectives follow nouns in Italian, whereas in SAE,
adjectives precede nouns.
W ord Order:
SAE relies heavily on a subject-verb-object sentence
structure. Due to Italian's heavy emphasis on inflection, the
language is less tied to a specific word order.
(FIS, 2017)
PRAGMATIC AND CULTURAL
CONSIDERATIONS
Italian people tend to have decreased
proximity to their conversational partner, often
standing within a few feet of them.
Physical touch during conversation is used to show
their engagement in a conversation. Italian people
are very tactile and affectionate in public.
Italians may see it as an indication of avoidance or
insult if someone moves away from them during
the conversation.
Making the tsk sound indicates no.
Italian children learn and use a larger range of
representational gestures to communicate meaning
than American children do.
Gestures used by Italian children much more
frequently represent objects and actions in
meaning, whereas American children almost
exclusively use gestures to convey conventional
meanings like 'hi,' and 'yes'.
Family, food, and soccer are important cultural
topics of conversation. Sensitivity to cultural
stereotypes and people is important.
(Italian Culture, 2017; Iverson et al., 2008)
EARLY INTERVENTION
CONSIDERATIONS
Research in age of acquisition of English for
native Italian speakers has shown to affect:
- Perception and production of English vowels
- Perception and production of the English
consonants -/ ?/ , / ?/ , / ð/ and plosives
- Duration of sentences in verbal expression
(MacKay et al., 2004; Flege et al., 1995, 1999)
REFERENCES
Bertinetto, P., & Loporcaro, M. (2005). The sound pattern of Standard
Italian, as compared with the varieties spoken in Florence, Milan and
Rome.Journal of theInternational PhoneticAssociation,35(2), 131-151.
doi:10.1017/ S0025100305002148
Flege, J.E., MacKay, I.R.A., & Meador, D. (1999). Native Italian speakers?perception
and production of English vowels.TheJournal of theAcoustical Society of America,
(106)5,2973-2987. doi: 10.1121/ 1.428116
Flege, J.E., Munro, M.J., & MacKay, I.R.A. (1995). Effects of age of second-language
learning on the production of English consonants.Speech Communication ,(16)5,1-26.
Frankfurt International School (FIS). (2017). The Differences Between Italian and
English. Retrieved from esl.fis.edu.
Italian Culture. (2017). In International Education Services Cultural Atlas. Retrieved
from: https:/ / culturalatlas.sbs.com.au
Italian Language. (2015, November 30). In Encyclopaedia Brittanica online. Retrieved
from: https:/ / www.britannica.com
Iverson, J.M., Capirci, O., Volterra, V., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2008). Learning to talk
in a gesture-rich world: Early communication in Italian vs. American children. First
Language, 28(2), 164-181. doi: 10.1177/ 0142723707087736.
MacKay, I.R.A. & Flege, J.E. (2004). Effects of the age of second language learning on
the duration of first and second language sentences: The role of suppression. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 25(3), 373-396. doi: 10.1017/ S0142716404001171.
CREATED BY:
Rebecca Ciafre, Maddie Dippold, Hope Erdmann,
Laura Nygard, and Beth Rabbin