A CROSS LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF PITCH RANGE IN ENGLISH L1 AND L2

This paper presents a preliminary investigation of the differences in pitch range in English spoken as L1 and L2. In this study, the productions of 5 English sentences read by 18 native (American) English speakers and 18 non-native (Italian) English speakers are compared. The hypothesis being tested is that Italian speakers of English have a narrower pitch range and less pitch variation that native English speakers. Different measures of pitch range are used to compare the productions of the two groups. The results of this preliminary study partially confirm the hypothesis and point to the existence of cross linguistic differences in pitch range that are worth further investigation