Imitation

Imitation in language involves numerous behaviors, namely speech patterns, gestures, facial expressions and mannerisms of the imitatee. It is an important element of social interaction which allows speakers to feel a greater sense of relatability and empathy. Imitation of speech patterns, in particular, are of interest in the field of second language acquisition as it gives evidence that auditory exposure is likely to be beneficial by aiding comprehension and speech production in a nonnative language.

A recent study conducted by Adank et. al (2010) has shed light on vocal imitation and its effect on spoken-language comprehension. Participants (all of whom were monolingual speakers of Dutch from the Netherlands) were exposed to training in an unfamiliar, novel accent of Dutch, and given a pretest to assess their comprehensive ability of the novel accent. They were then divided into 6 different groups which received either no training or different forms of training in the accent, after which they were given another comprehension test to assess their ability post-training. The results of the test have shown that the most effective means of improving comprehension was when participants underwent training which required them to imitate the pronunciation of words in the novel accent. Therefore, it can be said that in the acquisition of a nonnative language, imitating speech patterns of that language allows the learner to create better associations for particular words, which makes him quicker to anticipate these words in speech and in doing so improve his understanding of the language.