Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Volume 12, Issue 2, 2022

Two acoustic studies were carried out with L1 Polish learners of English. One study examined L1 phonetic drift, comparing learners of L2 English who were undergoing intensive L2 phonetic training with quasi-monolingual Polish speakers. The other study looked at L2 acquisition, comparing learners at two different levels of proficiency. Unlike most previous studies of Polish-English bilinguals, VOT data of both voiced and voiceless consonants were analyzed. In both experiments, an asymmetry was observed by which voiced stops were more susceptible to cross-language phonetic influence (CLI) than voiceless stops. These results build on evidence of a similar asymmetry observed in a number of other L1–L2 pairings. Predictions of competing phonological models are evaluated with regard to equivalence classification and phonetic CLI. It is shown that both traditional approaches to the phonological representation of voice contrasts fail to predict the observed asymmetry. An alternative theory, which predicts the asymmetry, is discussed.

This paper examines whether adult learners of English whose native languages (Korean and Mandarin Chinese) lack articles are influenced by transfer from demonstratives and numerals in their acquisition of English articles. To this end, the results of two studies are reported. The first study examines native Korean and Mandarin speakers’ preferences for bare vs. non-bare (demonstrative or numeral) forms in different types of definite and indefinite environments. The results of this study give rise to specific predictions for L1-Korean and L1-Mandarin L2-English learners’ sensitivity to article omission errors in different types of definite and indefinite contexts in English. These predictions are tested in the second study, which uses both an offline task (grammaticality judgments) and an online task (self-paced reading) to investigate learners’ sensitivity to errors of article omission. L1-Korean and L1-Mandarin L2-English learners are found to behave very similarly when tested in English, despite different preferences exhibited by native speakers of Korean and Mandarin.  It is concluded that learners of these article-less first languages do not transfer the semantics of demonstratives and numerals onto articles in their second language.

Adult late-LL learners are the main source of participants for research on utterance fluency. Although there are ample opportunities to study these learners, bilinguals who come from a more diverse background are under-researched. This paper investigates the effects of long-term bilingualism on the second-language fluency patterns of a community of LL-Afrikaans/LL-Spanish bilinguals residing in Patagonia, Argentina. These third-generation bilinguals are dominant in their LL and are undergoing LL attrition. The acoustic analysis draws from a corpus of Spanish sociolinguistic interviews obtained from the bilinguals, who were compared to Spanish monolinguals on speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. For some measures (mean-syllable duration and phonation-time ratio), the bilinguals performed similarly to the Spanish monolinguals, whereas for other measures the results were mixed: the bilinguals produced less filled pauses, but used longer silent pauses and more reformulations, than the monolinguals. These outcomes are theorized within current models of LL-speech production.

This study investigates the phonetic implementation of Galician /ɛ-e/ and /ɔ-o/ as produced by Galician-Spanish early bilinguals. It examines whether there is variation that can be explained by differences in participants’ linguistic histories (as captured by their language dominance scores). Based on production data from one point in participants’ lives, the study uses regression to predict phonetic variation from participants’ language dominance at that point in life. Results reveal that, although participants produce a robust /ε/ vs /e/ contrast, the L1 specific category, /ε/ presented a more fronted position, more like /e/, as a function of lower dominance in Galician. However, this effect was not replicated for the back vowels. Given our results, we argue that differences in language dominance may trigger phonetic variation in bilingual speech production in some variables, but not others. This result is consistent with the current cognitive approach in bilingualism research claiming the plasticity of native phonetic domains throughout an individual’s lifespan. Results also align with recent claims that language dominance does not equally affect multiple phonological processes for the same individual.

When acquiring Spanish object pronouns (OP), English-speaking second language (L2) learners must learn the variety of forms available, word order, and case distinctions. The acquisition of case distinctions in particular is an aspect that has not been thoroughly investigated. Zyzik (2006) showed, through production tasks, that English-speaking L2 Spanish learners overgeneralize the dative form to accusative contexts when the referent is animate. This study investigates how L2 learners use animacy (human, animal, and inanimate object) instead of case marking as cues to interpret and produce L2 Spanish object pronouns. Data from an interpretation task and a fill-in-the-blank production task were collected from 121 intermediate to advanced levels of Spanish learners. Results from linear mixed effects models reveal that learners show effects of the influence of animacy on object pronoun distinction in comprehension as well as production. A key new finding is that learners use the dative form with human referents, reserving accusative forms for animals and inanimate referents. These results provide evidence that animacy cues strongly influence L2 Spanish learners in the formation of their OP paradigm, especially at lower-proficiency levels. As proficiency increases, L2 learners begin to rely on case cues to distinguish Spanish OPs.