Acquiring allophonic structure and phonetic detail in a bilingual community: The production of laterals by Sylheti-English bilingual children

Aims and objectives: In this study, we consider the acquisition of allophonic contrast and phonetic detail in lateral consonants by second-generation Sylheti-English bilingual children in London, UK. Design/methodology/approach: Acoustic analysis was conducted on productions of /l/ by Sylheti bilingual children, Sylheti monolingual adults and English monolingual children. Data and analysis: Tokens of /l/ were elicited across initial, medial and final word positions from 14 bilingual Sylheti-English children, 10 monolingual English children, and 4 monolingual Sylheti adults. Acoustic measurements of F2–F1 were analysed using Bayesian linear mixed-effects modelling. Findings and conclusions: Our results show that bilingual children produce monolingual-like positional patterns in Sylheti, with very clear laterals in all positions. In contrast, bilinguals produce monolingual-like positional allophony in English, but they differ in phonetic detail, with bilinguals producing much clearer laterals than monolingual children across all positions. Originality: This study is the first to examine the development of allophonic contrast and phonetic detail in both of a bilingual’s languages in a contact scenario. This provides new insights into how contact varieties adopt aspects of structure and detail from each language. We also report valuable data from Sylheti-English bilinguals, who are an understudied community. Significance/limitations: Our study highlights the value of considering structural and detailed aspects of cross-linguistic sound systems, whereby one aspect may show monolingual-like patterns and another aspect may show distinctive patterns. We propose that the results in this study represent the development of a new sound system out of language contact, with second-generation bilingual children producing a hybrid system that combines influences from both heritage and host languages.

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Cognate similarity and intervocalic /d/ production in Riverense Spanish

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/1367006921996807 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136700692199680

Author(s):

Michael Gradoville ◽

Mark Waltermire ◽

Avizia Long

Keyword(s):

Language Contact ◽

Mixed Effects ◽

Frequency Effect ◽

Acoustic Measurements ◽

Linear Mixed Effects Model ◽

Phonetic Variation ◽

Linear Mixed Effects ◽

Contact Language ◽

The Relationship ◽

Phonetic Realization

Aims and objectives: While previous research has shown that phonetic variation in language contact situations is affected by whether a word has a cognate in the contact language, this paper aims to show that such an effect is not monotonic. According to the usage-based model, items in memory are organized according to similarity, thus we anticipated that formally more similar cognates would show a stronger cognate effect. Methodology: This variationist sociophonetic study investigates the relationship between cognate similarity and phonetic realization. We examined this relationship in the bilingual community of Rivera, Uruguay, in which both Portuguese and Spanish are spoken with regularity. Specifically, we focused on intervocalic /d/, which in monolingual Spanish is realized as an approximant [ð̞] or phonetic zero, but in monolingual Brazilian Portuguese is produced as a stop [d] or, in most varieties, an affricate [ʤ] before [i]. Data and analysis: We analyzed a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews of the Spanish spoken in Rivera. Acoustic measurements were taken from approximately 60 tokens each from 40 different speakers. Using a linear mixed-effects model, we examined the relationship between several predictors and the degree of constriction of intervocalic /d/. Findings/conclusions: While there is an overall frequency effect whereby more frequent words exhibit less constriction of intervocalic /d/, as both frequency and cognate similarity increase, less constriction of intervocalic /d/ obtains. Therefore, frequent cognates in Portuguese that have very similar forms affect the production of intervocalic /d/ more so than other cognates. Originality: No previous study has demonstrated that the cognate effect on phonetic variation in a situation of language contact is regulated by form similarity between cognate pairs. Significance/implications: The data support the usage-based model in that similar cognates have more lexical connections and can therefore show greater influence on phonetic realization than can cognates that share less phonetic material.

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Like in English and como, como que, and like in Spanish in the speech of Southern Arizona bilinguals

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/1367006919826329 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 184-207

Author(s):

Joseph Kern

Keyword(s):

Language Contact ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Discourse Markers ◽

Language Dominance ◽

Independent Variables ◽

Discourse Particles ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Research Questions ◽

Contact Situation

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This study analyzes the use of like in English and como, como que, and like in Spanish in the speech of bilinguals from Southern Arizona to assess the possible influence of like in English on its equivalents in Spanish in a language contact situation in which English is the majority language. Design/Methodology/Approach: Drawing on a discourse-pragmatic variationist approach, this study analyzes the use of like in English and its Spanish equivalents in recorded conversations between nine pairs of young Spanish-English bilingual friends from Southern Arizona. Data and Analysis: 3389 tokens of like in English and its Spanish equivalents from 18 hours of recorded conversations (9 hours in each language) were analyzed quantitatively. The analysis assesses the relative frequencies of these variants and their syntactic positioning as clause-external discourse markers and clause-internal discourse particles. The independent variables of the analysis were the language of the conversation and the sex and language dominance of the participants. Findings/Conclusions: Contact with English did not appear to radically influence the use of como, como que, and like in Spanish in the speech of these bilinguals. In the speech of the same bilinguals, like in English was much more frequent and occurred in many more syntactic positions than its Spanish equivalents. Originality: This is the first study of discourse-pragmatic features in contact to analyze the use of discourse markers and discourse particles in both the donor and the recipient language in the speech of the same bilinguals. Significance/Implications: These results contribute to our knowledge of the limited interaction of linguistic repertoires in the speech of bilinguals at the discourse level even in language contact situations with a majority language. They also underline the ability of bilinguals to both understand and reproduce the subtleties of the use of these features in the two languages they speak.

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The acquisition of Spanish and English as two first languages through the analysis of natural interpreting in bilingual children

Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1075/resla.30.1.06fer ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 142-165 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Raquel Fernández Fuertes ◽

Esther Álvarez de la Fuente

Keyword(s):

Language Contact ◽

Code Switching ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Simultaneous Processing ◽

English Bilingual ◽

First Languages ◽

Bilingual Corpora ◽

The Way

Abstract Research on the acquisition of two first languages from birth (2L1A) has focused, among other issues, on how the grammars of the two languages being acquired interact (e.g. Bhatia & Ritchie, 2012; De Houwer, 2009; Deuchar & Quay, 2000; Döpke, 2000; Köppe & Meisel, 1995). A case in point is natural interpreting which evidences how bilingual children exposed to two languages from birth deal with the grammatical properties of the two languages and how this leads them to potentially convey the same message in either (or both) of these languages. More specifically, as part of the simultaneous processing of their two L1s, 2L1 bilingual children have been reported to often translate between their two L1s (Álvarez de la Fuente & Fernández Fuertes, 2012, 2015; Cossato, 2008; Harris, 1980a, 1980b; Harris & Sherwood, 1978), a phenomenon that has been called natural interpreting (Harris, 1977, 2003). In this respect, natural interpreting can be included with other language contact phenomena, such as interlinguistic influence or code-switching, as a typical defining property of 2L1A. Therefore, in this study we aim to offer an analysis of the way in which Spanish-English bilingual children use natural interpreting in their 2L1A process by focusing on the Spanish-English bilingual corpora freely available through the CHILDES project (MacWhinney, 2000).

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Vowel development in an emergent Mandarin-English bilingual child: a longitudinal study

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000914000531 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 42 (5) ◽

pp. 1125-1145 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

JING YANG ◽

ROBERT A. FOX ◽

EWA JACEWICZ

Keyword(s):

Picture Naming ◽

Acoustic Analysis ◽

Naming Task ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Developmental Profile ◽

Longitudinal Case Study ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Vowel Space ◽

New System

AbstractThis longitudinal case study documents the emergence of bilingualism in a young monolingual Mandarin boy on the basis of an acoustic analysis of his vowel productions recorded via a picture-naming task over 20 months following his enrollment in an all-English (L2) preschool at the age of 3;7. The study examined (1) his initial L2 vowel space, (2) the process of L1-L2 separation, and (3) his L1 vowel system in relation to L2. The child initially utilized his L1 base in building the L2 vowel system. The L1-L2 separation started from a drastic restructuring of his working vowel space to create maximal contrast between the two languages. Meanwhile, L1 developmental processes and influence of L2 on L1 were also in effect. The developmental profile of this child uncovered strategies sequential bilingual children may use to restructure their phonetic space and construct a new system of contrasts in L2.

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Differentiating language contact phenomena: Evidence from Korean–English bilingual children

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716402003028 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 337-360 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

SARAH J. SHIN

Keyword(s):

Data Analysis ◽

Language Contact ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Special Focus ◽

Case Marking ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Language Mixing ◽

The Status ◽

Group A ◽

Variable Analysis

This paper attempts to provide a reliable description of the characteristics of intrasentential language mixing produced by a group a Korean–English bilingual children, with a special focus on the distinction between code switching and borrowing. Making use of the inherent variability in case marking in Korean, this study employs a quantitative variationist method to determine the status of single nouns of English origin in an otherwise Korean discourse, which constitute the largest portion of the bilingual data. Analysis of the overall bilingual data suggests that intrasentential language mixing is determined by the bilingual abilities and preferences of the speaker as well as those of the addressee. The results of the variable analysis of case marking show that most of the English-origin objects and subjects of Korean verbs are best treated as borrowings and not as code switches.

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An Introductory Examination of Speech Disfluencies in Spanish–English Bilingual Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter During Narratives

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/2019_persp-19-00040 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 131-141

Author(s):

Cristina Rincon ◽

Kia Noelle Johnson ◽

Courtney Byrd

Keyword(s):

Diagnostic Criteria ◽

Preliminary Data ◽

Diagnostic Information ◽

English Speakers ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Developmental Stuttering ◽

Mean Length Of Utterance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the frequency and type of speech disfluencies (stuttering-like and nonstuttering-like) in bilingual Spanish–English (SE) children who stutter (CWS) to SE children who do not stutter (CWNS) during narrative samples elicited in Spanish and English to provide further diagnostic information for this population and preliminary data toward an expansion of this study. Method Participants included six bilingual SE children (three CWS, three CWNS) ranging in age from 5 years to 7;5 (years;months) and recruited from the surrounding Houston, Texas area. Participants provided a narrative sample in English and Spanish. The frequency of speech disfluencies was tabulated, and mean length of utterance was measured for each sample. Results Results indicate that both talker groups exceed the diagnostic criteria typically used for developmental stuttering. Regardless of the language being spoken, CWS participants had a frequency of stuttering-like speech disfluencies that met or exceeded the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering that is based on monolingual English speakers. The CWNS participants varied in meeting the criteria depending on the language being spoken, with one of the three CWNS exceeding the criteria in both languages and one exceeding the criteria for percentage of stuttering-like speech disfluencies in one language. Conclusion Findings from this study contribute to the development of more appropriate diagnostic criteria for bilingual SE-speaking children to aid in the reduction of misdiagnoses of stuttering in this population.

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