Native and vietnamese production of compound and phrasal stress patterns

This study examines prosodic transfer effects in the production of three contrastive English stress patterns at the level of word and phrase prosody by Vietnamese learners of English. Both languages employ distinctive patterns of pitch (F0) and intensity prominence to signal contrasts between otherwise homophonous compound and phrasal constructions, though reversed in headedness (English: black-bird vs black bird; Vietnamese: flower-pink [rose], flower pink [pink flower]). However, English but not Vietnamese requires compounds to conform to temporal constraints of word prosody. Both languages also signal contrasts between broad and narrow (contrastive) focus (e.g. ‘A black bird...not a white one’). Comparisons between advanced and beginner Vietnamese learners productions of these three stress patterns reveal good accommodation to L2 pitch and intensity targets but imperfect adaptation to timing constraints that distinguish word from phrasal constructions in English.