L1 Framing Typology and Acoustic Differences in L2 Speech: Insights From Motion Constructions

Languages differ in how they construct motion events. These crosslinguistic differences, referred to as framing typology, affect how speakers of different languages conceptualize motion events. Differences in event conceptualization may also transfer to the L2 (conceptual transfer), as shown from learners’ grammatical choices and their gestures. However, it is unclear whether L1-based conceptualization patterns can also extend to the acoustic domain of L2 speech production. Therefore, this study examined read speech from two spoken corpora of L2 English speakers whose L1s were of different framing typologies. English production from Korean and Turkish L1 speakers (V-framed) was compared to that of L1 German and L1 English speakers (S-framed). Various acoustic measurements of duration, pitch and intensity were extracted and analyzed. Results show no reliable acoustic differences between the two framing typologies, but rather show differences between native and non-native English speakers. Post hoc acoustic analyses further show how native and non-native English speakers differ. Our results suggest that speech production may be one modality where conceptual transfer of framing typology is not easily observable and that differences in L2 speech production can be best explained as resulting from articulatory differences between native and non-native speakers of the target language.