The effects of orthography and cognate status on L2 German pronunciation

Abstract Orthography has well-documented effects on L2 pronunciation accuracy. This study investigates the effects of orthographic input on the devoicing of L2 German learners’ production of voiced stops /b, d, g/ in final position. Additionally, we investigate the interaction of cognate status and orthographic input. Thirty L2 German students completed read-aloud, picture-naming, and delayed-repetition tasks using target words classified as identical, near, and noncognates. Analysis of voicing using stop closure duration and the amount of glottal pulse during stop closure showed orthography interfered with pronunciation accuracy. Cognate status resulted in more target-like pronunciation only for noncognates in the read-aloud and delayed-repetition tasks. The results confirm earlier findings that orthographic input in L1 English-L2 German matching leads to less accurate pronunciation and that identical cognates and near cognates suffer most from orthographic effects.