The perception of gemination in Italian by first-language speakers in Italy and heritage and second-language speakers in Australia

This study investigates the perception of the consonant length distinction in Italian by first-language (L1), heritage (HS) and second-language (L2) speakers in Australia. We wished to investigate whether Italian HS and L2 speakers perceive gemination differently from L1 Italian speakers and determine if there are any differences between these groups. We conducted a perceptual experiment based on the identification of word-medial geminates in three minimal pairs (/ˈpapa/-/ˈpappa/, /ˈfata/-/ˈfatta/, /ˈpaka/-/ˈpakka/) by three speaker groups: Italian L1, L2, and HS. Results show that while L1 listeners have a solid perceptual awareness of singletons versus geminates based on consonant and vowel duration and the associated C/V ratio, HS and L2 show much less reliance on these cues. At the same time, HS appear to perceive the singleton-geminate contrast differently from both Italian L1 and L2, falling somewhere in between, a result consistent with their level of exposure to Italian (less than L1 and more than L2) over their lifetimes.