FLUENCY AND SPEAKING FUNDAMENTAL FREQUENCY IN BILINGUAL SPEAKERS OF HIGH AND LOW GERMAN Jörg Peters University of Oldenburg joerg.peters@uol.de ABSTRACT Studies on second language acquisition have shown that the use of a foreign language is often associated with lower fluency, higher pitch level, and reduced pitch span. This paper examines the question of whether low literacy skills in one’s native language have similar effects on read speech. Using a within- speaker design, fluency measures and long-term dis- tributional measures of pitch level and span were ob- tained for read speech from early High and Low Ger- man bilinguals who were less literate in Low German than in High German. Results indicate lower fluency and higher pitch level for Low German speech. Pitch span varied by gender. Males compressed it in Low German speech while females expanded it. These re- sults suggest that low literacy skills in one’s native language may have acoustic effects on read speech similar to those found in speaking a foreign language, and that gender should also be taken into account. Keywords: pitch level, pitch span, fluency, literacy, bilingualism. 1. INTRODUCTION Speaking a foreign language is a cognitively demand- ing task that often is accompanied by a reduction of oral fluency. A decrease of fluency in L2 speech was observed both in comparing the L1 and L2 speech of the same speakers [14, 30] and in comparing the speech of natives and non-natives speaking the same language [10, 13, 19]. Differences in fluency were found in various temporal variables including speech rate, articulation rate, phonation/time ratio, mean length of runs, mean length of silent pauses, duration of silent pauses per minute, and number of silent pauses per minute. Fluency measures were reported to correlate with the level of proficiency in the L2 [19, 20, 23]. The reduction of fluency in low-proficient L2 speech can be attributed to increased cognitive effort when speaking an L2, which requires more planning time [10, 12]. Acoustic effects of increased cognitive effort were also found for speaking fundamental frequency (SFF). An increase of pitch level was observed in comparing the L1 and L2 speech of the same speakers [15, 16]. The comparison of the speech of natives and non-natives speaking the same language shows less consistent results, possibly due to the influence of the L1 [32, 33]. L2 speech was also found to have a compressed pitch span and reduced variance when compared to the L1 speech of the same speakers [31, 34] and when compared to native speakers of the same language [5, 13, 24, 31-33]. The findings of [31] further suggest that the difference in pitch span decreases with in- creasing experience in the L2. Similar effects on fluency and SFF were found in bilingual speakers. In non-balanced bilinguals, lower fluency was found in the non-native or non-dominant language [9, 22]. Furthermore, un-balanced bilin- guals had a higher pitch level and a narrower pitch span in the non-native or non-dominant language [6, 26]. Deviating results were found for speakers with high proficiency in the L2 and speakers of a tone lan- guage [1, 7, 22]. The study of balanced simultaneous bilinguals by [11] shows that language-specific fac- tors can be relevant in non-tonal languages as well. Finally, the study of balanced Welsh-English bilin- guals by [27], who found an expanded pitch span in Welsh female speech, suggests that sociocultural fac- tors and societal expectations should also be taken into account. Overall, these results point to less fluency, higher pitch level and narrower pitch span in the L2 of lan- guage learners and in the weaker language of bilin- guals. Less attention has been paid to the question of how low literacy skills resulting from a lack of read- ing experience affect fluency and SFF in read speech (cf. [3]). In particular, when examining regional or minority languages, which are predominantly used in oral communication, the possible effects of a lack of reading experience deserve more attention. An inter- esting case in this respect is Low German, a regional language spoken in northern Germany, which is di- vided into several dialect groups and has no standard variety. There are almost no monolingual speakers of Low German left today. However, there are still many older speakers who grew up with Low German as their first language and who have acquired High Ger- man in their first years of life or at the latest when they entered primary school. Most if not all of these speakers are less familiar with reading in Low Ger- man than in High German. In a recent survey in north- ern Germany, more than half of the respondents said 1655