Sound maintenance and change: exploring inter-language phonetic influence in first-generation Italo-Australian immigrants

The present study explores the phonetic influence exerted by late-acquired L3 English on the native dialect of four first-generation Italo-Australian speakers from Belluno, Northeastern Veneto, who moved to Sydney, Australia in the mid-late 1950s. We map phenomena of attrition, maintenance and/or loss in their spoken L1 (Veneto Dialect) by investigating the fine phonetic details of selected voiceless coronal fricatives: the interdental [θ], shared with English L3 but absent in the phonological inventory of their L2 (Standard Italian, SI); [s] and [ʃ], present in all the three repertoires. Their dialectal productions are compared to those of four Italian monolingual speakers (controls) who never moved from Italy and who live in the same area of origin of the four first-generation Italo-Australian speakers.