Age of acquisition and allophony in Spanish-English bilinguals

Abstract

This study examines age of acquisition (AoA) in Spanish-English bilinguals’ phonetic and phonological knowledge of /l/ in English and Spanish. In English, the lateral approximant /l/ varies in darkness by context [based on the second formant (F2) and the difference between F2 and the first formant (F1)], but the Spanish /l/ does not. Further, English /l/ is overall darker than Spanish /l/. Thirty-eight college-aged adults participated: 11 Early Spanish-English bilinguals who learned English before the age of 5 years, 14 Late Spanish-English bilinguals who learned English after the age of 6 years, and 13 English monolinguals. Participants’ /l/ productions were acoustically analyzed by language and context. The results revealed a Spanish-to-English phonetic influence on /l/ productions for both Early and Late bilinguals, as well as an English-to-Spanish phonological influence on the patterning of /l/ for the Late Bilinguals. These findings are discussed in terms of the Speech Learning Model and the effect of AoA on the interaction between a bilingual speaker’s two languages.

How and When Does the Second Language Influence the Production of Native Speech Sounds: A Literature Review

“…Similar results have also been reported in very early bilinguals who acquired their L2 before the age of 3 (Barlow, Branson, & Nip, ) and who grew up in bilingual communities (e.g., French‐English communities of Canada, see MacLeod et al., ). Another study has also shown that very early bilinguals (mean AoA of 2.4 years) do not show altered L1 production and that only later bilinguals (mean AoA of 8.3) apply the phonological rules of the L2 when speaking their L1 (Barlow, ). Consistent with the above, the results of the studies having measured production latencies support the idea that simultaneous and very early bilinguals have separate representations for the L1 and L2.…”

“…See Figure for a schematic representation of L1 and L2 sounds in early bilinguals. Another study, however, has shown that when the L2 is learned somewhat later, around the age of 8, the nature of L1 drift is assimilatory; although there was no overall drift in the L1 sounds, participants used L2 phonological rules to produce L1 speech sounds, for example, the L1 Spanish /l/ in Spanish‐English bilinguals varied in darkness depending on the context, as occurs in English (Barlow, ). The results of these studies suggest that early bilinguals have a tendency to deflect L1 and L2 categories away from each other when a novel category is created for similar L2 sounds, but that when the L2 is learned somewhat later the influences can be of an assimilatory nature.…”

“…This shows that the phonetic productions of early bilinguals, even those in their L1, differ from those of monolinguals. The exception to this appears to be when the two languages are acquired simultaneously or very early; here bilinguals define the speech categories for both languages in a monolingual-like fashion, with no drift in L1 speech sound categories (Guion, 2003;Barlow, 2014). In contrast, very late bilinguals are more likely to perceptually assimilate similar L2 sounds to existing L1 categories, in line with the SLM (Flege, 1995).…”

“…Previous research on L2 acquisition has shown that individual differences in perceptual abilities (Perrachione, Lee, Ha, & Wong, 2011), in empathy levels (Hu et al, 2013), in sensori-motor control (Simmonds, Wise, Dhanjal, & Leech, 2011), in motivation (Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken, & Schils, 1997) and in the compactness (i.e., inverse of variability) of native phonetic production (Kartushina & Frauenfelder, 2013, 2014Kartushina, Hervais-Adelman, Frauenfelder, & Golestani, 2015) can help explain individual differences in the acquisition of L2 sounds. Some recent studies on the effects of the L2 on L1 production have also shown that the amount of change in L1 varies greatly across speakers (e.g., nativelike production in both the L1 and L2 for some L2 learners (e.g., De Leeuw, Mennen, & Scobbie, 2012;Major, 1992).…”

In support of representational economy: Agreement in heritage Spanish

“…2 Despite the heterogeneity of their demographic profiles and levels of proficiency, certain characteristics of heritage speakers have been shown to be remarkably consistent, setting these speakers apart both from native and L2 speakers of a given language. At the phonological level, heritage speakers diverge from their native counterparts in aspects of pronunciation and prosody (Godson 2003;Barlow 2014;Chang 2016). At the syntactic level, heritage speakers tend to impose more rigid word order where native speakers allow for flexibility (Isurin & Ivanova-Sullivan 2008;Ivanova-Sullivan 2014); relatedly, they limit their inventory of syntactic dependencies (Polinsky 2011).…”