Schwa Deletion in Word-Initial Syllables of Polysyllabic Words

This study aims to analyse factors that could influence schwa deletion in word-initial syllables of polysyllabic words in continuous French speech. Both phonological and extralinguistic factors were considered: number of consonants, post-lexical context, speech style, sex and profession. Three large corpora covering different speech styles were explored using forced alignment with optional schwa variants. Formal journalistic ESTER corpus, conversational journalistic ETAPE corpus and casual speech NCCFr corpus were used in this study. We observe that schwa tends to be deleted more for 2C-words than for 3C-words. Words preceded by a consonant or a pause tend to prevent schwa deletion whereas words preceded by a vowel tend to facilitate schwa deletion. The less formal the speech style is, the more schwas are deleted. Males tend to delete schwas more frequently than females. Interestingly, journalists tend to delete more schwas than politicians in our data.

Analysing Language Exposure and its Consequences on Bilingual Development in Dutch–English-Speaking Children in Australia

The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in overall language ability and vocabulary of either Australian or overseas born bilingual Dutch–English children and the possible parental influence on these children’s language development. The participants were 86 children aged 4–12 years living in Australia and either born there or overseas in the Netherlands. Standardized language assessments were used to assess children’s expressive and receptive language skills in Dutch and English. Children born in Australia scored significantly higher on English language assessments and lower on the Dutch language assessments. When children’s parents frequently spoke Dutch with their children, they had significantly better Dutch skills, and when parents spoke primarily English at home, their children had better English skills. Based on outcomes on the questionnaires, multivariate logistic regression identified that storytelling and reading books in the heritage language contributed significantly to children’s Dutch language development). The study could not identify factors that contribute to English language development in Dutch children in Australia. However, for the Dutch language, frequent storytelling and reading books in Dutch are both important factors for development of the native language.

First Language Attrition on Prosody in a Foreign Language Environment

In this study, we explore whether first language (L1) attrition affects the use of prosodic cues in anaphora resolution. 18 late Italian–Swedish bilinguals completed a speech production task in L1 Italian, wherein we measured the inter-clausal pause duration and the pronoun’s degree of prosodic prominence. They also completed a control interpretation task, wherein we analysed response preferences, to test the status of L1 attrition on anaphora resolution when sentences are not vocalized. Prominence patterns and pause features exhibited by the late bilinguals were compared to those shown by Italian and Swedish monolinguals investigated in a previous study in 2019. The results suggest L1 attrition to affect the use of prosodic cues in anaphora resolution. The attrition rate was influenced by length of residence (LoR): the longer the residence in the foreign language (FL) environment, the higher the probability of adaptation to the FL prominence patterns, for most of the prosodic cues.

Double Literacy Effects on Language and Reading Skills in Italian–English Primary School Children

Major concerns still surround literacy education in a foreign language during primary school. In this study, we aim to establish (1) whether bilinguals perform worse in Italian literacy tests than monolinguals; (2) whether literacy skills transfer from Italian to English. We tested 97 Italian–English bilingual first, third and fifth graders (attending two bilingual primary schools in Italy, with a simultaneous 50:50 immersion programme) and a control group of 40 monolingual Italian pupils in grades 1 and 3. All participants were tested in Italian, measuring the following skills: vocabulary, phonological awareness, reading proficiency and verbal short-term memory. Bilingual participants – who had been exposed to Italian since birth and to English within the first three years of their lives – were also tested on the same measures in English. The results showed that bilingual first graders outperformed their monolingual peers in verbal short-term memory, thus revealing a possible cognitive advantage in the early stage of literacy acquisition. Monolingual and bilingual firstand third graders did not differ in reading speed. The two groups made an almost similar number of errors, but the small difference turned out to be statistically significant. Bilingual subjects’ reading attainment was found to be within monolingual normal limits in both languages on all measures except for English reading comprehension, which, together with English vocabulary, was found to be below the English norm. Aside from reading comprehension, on all other measures bilingual children’s performance in Italian correlated with their performance in English, suggesting the presence of cross-linguistic transfer of language and reading skills.

Bilingual Advantage

A finding that has not received much attention in the metalinguistic awareness literature is that bilingual children may be better at identifying gender mismatches between a subject and a predicate. This phenomenon is not well understood, nor has it been studied systematically. In the present study we present a systematic investigation of the phenomenon involving all three levels of metalinguistic awareness (identification of the mismatch, correction and explanation) in a language pair that has not been tested previously. We tested a group of six-year-old Arabic–English bilingual children in comparison with two monolingual control groups. Results reveal that bilinguals performed better than monolinguals at the correction level. The study reveals a bilingual advantage in this population for the first time, while enhancing our knowledge of the development of metalinguistic awareness.

Separation of Vowel Sequences by Consonant Addition in a Child’s Bilingual Development

Studying infrequent variants in child developmental speech is insightful for language representation and processing. Phonological processes like anticipation and perseveration account for such productions in children. How children process such infrequent variants during development has not been fully explored. In particular, there is no study on the separation of within-word vowel sequences by consonant addition in monolingual or bilingual children. The present study investigates this in a bilingual child’s phonological development in English and Greek, from age 2;7 to 3;9. Sufficient data were obtained for English diphthongs and hiatus and Greek hiatus. Results show that Greek, the stronger language by 1 MLU, interferes with perseverations in English between code-switched utterances. Such consonant additions, which are more frequent in the stronger language, decrease with age in both languages. While anticipation overall increases with age in both languages, within-word perseveration also increases. Word-position frequency of vowel sequences and of their added consonants in the words triggering them, as well as processing distance, are language and process (anticipation/perseveration) dependent. The results offer insights into error processing in child monolingual and bilingual speech.

Exploring the Stability of Second Language Speech Ratings through Task Practice in Bilinguals’ Two Languages

This study examined the stability of second language (L2) speech ratings as a function of bilingual raters engaging in perspective taking through practice of the target speaking task. Thirty English-dominant English–French bilinguals evaluated narratives from 40 French speakers of L2 English for segmental errors, intonation, and flow. Before providing the ratings, 20 raters practiced the task in their more or less dominant language (10 per group), while 10 baseline raters performed no practice. Whereas the English practice enhanced raters’ evaluations for two of the three dimensions relative to baseline raters’ assessments, the French practice did not impact rating stability.

Iranian Persian

The present article proposes a sociolinguistic stance in the dissemination of information for use in the clinical context of speech language pathology (SLP) internationally. This practical guide to speech and culture aims to encourage the integration of linguistic and cultural facets in clinical practicum approaches, providing a useful and clinically relevant resource. This comes as a natural consequence of the systematic efforts worldwide to train and inform SLP workforces on providing equitable, targeted, and appropriate service to linguistically and culturally diverse clients such as minorities and immigrants. The specific focus of this guide is on Iranian Persian, a language and culture that is under-represented in published, clinically relevant literature. The paper provides an easily accessible reference manual on the phonological development and clinical assessment of Iranian Persian child speech in typical and atypical, monolingual and bilingual contexts, as well as on cultural aspects that may dictate the success of clinician and client/family interactions.

L2 Perception and Production of Japanese Lexical Pitch

Adults are known to have difficulties acquiring suprasegmental speech that involves pitch (f0) in a second language (L2) (Graham & Post, 2018; Hirata, 2015; Wang, Spence, Jongman & Sereno, 1999; Wong & Perrachione, 2007). Previous research has suggested that the perceived similarity between L1 and L2 phonology may influence how easily segmental speech is acquired, but this notion of ‘similarity’ may also apply to suprasegmental speech (So & Best, 2010; Wu, Munro & Wang, 2014). In this paper, the L2 acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch was assessed under a ‘Suprasegmental Similarity Account’, which is a theoretical framework inspired by previous models of segmental and suprasegmental speech (Best & Tyler, 2007; Flege, 1995; Mennen, 2015) to account for the L2 acquisition of word prosody. Eight adult native speakers of Japanese and eight adult English-native advanced learners of Japanese participated in a perception and production study of Japanese lexical pitch patterns. Both groups performed similarly in perception, but non-native speakers performed significantly worse in production, particularly for ‘unaccented’ Low–High–High patterns. These findings are discussed in light of the ‘Suprasegmental Similarity Account’.

Literate and linguistic features of Chinese EFL learners’ narrative versus expository writing

This study evaluated the narrative and expository English writing corpus from 20 Chinese English learners at three linguistic levels: the use of literate words (elaborated noun phrases, conjunctions, adverbs, and mental state verbs), the degree of sentence complexity, and the use of subordinate clauses (nominal, adverbial and relative clauses). Results first showed a genre effect on literate word use but not on utterance length and clausal density. Specifically, there were more elaborated noun phrases and conjunctions in expository texts, but more adverbs in narrative texts. Results also revealed a genre effect on the use of relative clauses but not on other clauses. Finally, a strong correlation between literate word use and the production of complex syntax was found after controlling for the effects of genre. These results highlight the need for genre-dependent writing instruction to make students aware of the different language resources expected across genres as specific contexts of communication.