Kontrastive Phonetik und Prosodie: Deutsch vs. Italienisch

Abstract: This paper presents a contrastive analysis of German and Italian phonetics and phonology at all levels of oral production, i.e. the segmental, the intersegmental and the suprasegmental level. It further discusses the relevance of prosody in relation with the so- called “foreign accent”, considering both its appearance and its fossilization in L2 German acquisition by Italian speakers. Finally, the paper presents a prosody-centred method for efficient phonetic training addressed to Italian learners of German. Prosodic aspects – spe- cifically, pauses, intonation contours and accents – consciously used as a means for acqui- ring L2 pronunciation lead to correct L2 perception and production at all phonetic levels.