Introduction: Prosody is the manipulation of fundamental frequency, output intensity, and duration to provide intonation, stress, and rhythm patterns in the production of English. Thus prosody is a highly laryngeal phenomenon intimately associated with language expression and communication meaning. Descriptions of English prosody and the successful imitation of English prosody by second language learners should indicate much about the production and change of production of voice and speech of central interest to SLPs, voice scientists, singing and spoken word teachers, and others. For example, when a second language learner of English attempts to imitate a native English speaker, what aspects of voice production are more accurate and which less accurate? The answer to that question has relevance to voice and speech production and learning, pedagogy for speech and singing, and language acquisition and differences.
Objective: This study examined how native Farsi speakers modify laryngeal and acoustic features when imitating the prosody of native American English speech. The goal of the investigation was to identify which phonatory parameters are most responsive to short-term imitation and how these reflect underlying laryngeal control strategies during second-language stress production.
Methods: Four adult Farsi speakers produced trisyllabic target words embedded in sentences before and after multiple imitation trials of native English models. Speech samples were analyzed for syllable duration, mean and peak fundamental frequency (f₀), and intensity using Praat. Temporal normalization and semitone scaling were applied to enable comparison with native reference productions.
Results: Imitation led to significant convergence toward native patterns in duration across participants, indicating rapid temporal-laryngeal adaptation. Average f₀ showed moderate improvement—mainly in unstressed syllables—while peak f₀ and intensity remained relatively resistant to change despite 8 imitations.
Conclusions: The findings highlight the differential flexibility of laryngeal mechanisms in prosodic imitation. Duration-based control appears to be the primary adaptive strategy, reflecting cross-language transfer of Farsi stress patterns, because duration is a primary cue for stress in Farsi. This study contributes to understanding how temporal and laryngeal coordination mechanisms support prosodic imitation and may inform voice training and therapeutic interventions involving cross-linguistic phonatory adaptation.