A Phonetic Study of Voice - and Segment - Quality Changes during Second Language Acquisition

Abstract. In this paper, we study the productions of twelve French-speaking Belgian subjects who attended a first-year Russian course with the aim of becoming translators or interpreters. A perceptual analysis, conducted by experts of Russian pronunciation, enabled us to define each learner's acquisition profile, and led to the choice of three subjects who had the most contrasted acquisition profiles in the sample. Segmental analysis was used in order to capture some specific phonetic processes involved in the acquisition of Russian. A comparison was made with speech samples drawn from the productions of a native speaker of Russian. Using Long Term Average Spectra as acoustic cues to voice quality, we were able to qualify the subjects' productions in a global and measurable way. This quantititative approach confirmed the results of perceptual and segmental analysis.