Identification of consonant length in L2 Italian: the role of cross-linguistic influence

Italian contrasts singleton and geminate consonants, a distinction that often poses difficulties for second language (L2) learners. The present study examines how first-language (L1) background shapes the perception of Italian consonant length by comparing learners from five linguistic backgrounds. A total of 104 adult learners of Italian (Finnish, Czech, German, Slovak, Spanish) and 21 L1 Italian listeners as a control group completed a perception identification task with 54 pseudowords controlled for consonant type and stress position. Participants categorized each auditory stimulus by selecting between the singleton and geminate orthographic response options (e.g., sàppolo vs. sàpolo ). The results reveal high overall identification accuracy (81%), but substantial differences across learner groups. Learners whose L1 encodes consonantal and/or vocalic quantity contrasts (Finnish, Czech, Slovak) produced identification patterns closer to those of Italian listeners, while learners from languages without systematic length contrasts (Spanish, German) showed less accuracy. The observed hierarchy of accuracy confirms the importance of cross-linguistic influence in the perception of duration-based contrasts. While stress position and proficiency played more limited roles, consonant type also influenced performance. In particular, sonorants were identified more accurately than obstruents, and several consonant-specific tendencies reflected differences in the learners' L1 phonological inventories. A comparison with a previous discrimination study, conducted with the same participants, revealed higher accuracy in identification across all groups, suggesting that identification performance reflects phonological categorization processes and may additionally have been facilitated by the written responses available during the task. The findings highlight the role of cross-linguistic influence in the perception of Italian consonant length and contribute to a broader understanding of how L2 learners map continuous acoustic variation onto phonological categories.