Territorio cerniera vs. Scharniergebiet – Der Wortakzent im Deutschen und seine Implikationen für den DaF-Unterricht in Italien

This paper examines the phonetic aspects of German (L2)-Italian (L1) language contact, with a specific focus on lexical prominence in complex German words. First, the paper presents the phonetic and phonological regularities of stress assignment. This is fol- lowed by an analysis of the articulatory and auditory habits of stress production and perception by German native speakers. The article examines the processing of lexical stress by Italian learners from a contrastive perspective highlighting the similarities and differences between German and Italian compounds in terms of morphology, lexicon, and phonetic-phonological features. It presents the results of an experimental study on the perceptual abilities of L2 learners in the context of stress perception and L2 phonetic acquisition. Finally, the article discusses the didactic implications for phonetic acquisi- tion and offers suggestions and tools for successful phonetically oriented German as a Foreign Language (GFL) teaching in Italy.