Cross‐Linguistic Influence in Intonation: French/Japanese and French/English*

This article reports the findings of research on the acquisition of French intonation by native speakers of Canadian English and Japanese. Intonation is limited, in this study, to the domain of phonosyntax where intonational cues are correlated with syntactical units. Results of the study show that cross‐linguistic influence in intonation is of central importance in the learner's acquisition of the target system and that one should not underestimate the degree of complexity of that influence. The study shows that it is relevant to differentiate between cross‐linguistic influence of intonational phonological rules and cross‐linguistic influence of phonetic characteristics, and that in both aspects a cross‐linguistic influence is at work.