ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 describes and discusses the second half of the project’s findings by presenting the results of experiments that investigated OEs on Italians’ English speech perception, awareness, spoken word learning, and sound learning. The chapter addresses research questions 4 to 8 (listed in Chapter 3). For each question, one or more experiments are described, results are reported, and the research question is answered on the basis of the results. Findings overall show that consonant spelling (one letter or double letters) leads Italians to perceive, categorise, and learn the same English consonant as a singleton or geminate (short or long, respectively), depending on its spelling. Results confirm that Italians establish a consonant length contrast in their English phonological systems that does not exist in the phonological systems of English native speakers. This is the first ever experimental evidence that the same orthographic phenomenon (in this case, letter number) can affect all aspects of L2 phonology (perception, production, awareness, and learning). The last section of the chapter reports the first ever teaching intervention to address OEs on L2 phonology.
