Bilingual perceptual benefits of experience with a heritage language

Abstract

Research on the linguistic knowledge of heritage speakers has been concerned primarily with the advantages conferred by heritage language experience in production, perception, and (re)learning of the heritage language. Meanwhile, second-language speech research has begun to investigate potential benefits of first-language transfer in second-language performance. Bridging these two bodies of work, the current study examined the perceptual benefits of heritage language experience for heritage speakers of Korean in both the heritage language (Korean) and the dominant language (American English). It was hypothesized that, due to their early bilingual experience and the different nature of unreleased stops in Korean and American English, heritage speakers of Korean would show not only native-like perception of Korean unreleased stops, but also better-than-native perception of American English unreleased stops. Results of three perception experiments were consistent with this hypothesis, suggesting that benefits of early heritage language experience can extend well beyond the heritage language.

Silence is difficult: On missing elements in bilingual grammars

“…Other researchers have emphasized that HL speakers stand out with respect to the native-like comprehension and production of phonetic/phonological segments (Au et al 2008;Chang 2016) and tone (Chang and Yao 2016); prosodic benefits of early exposure are a natural extension of this pattern. However, prosody is present in all structures, and native speakers integrate it successfully in their reading even for neutral or default intonation contours.…”

In support of representational economy: Agreement in heritage Spanish

“…On one end, heritage speakers can be so proficient that in casual conversation they pass as native speakers. On the other end, some heritage speakers are able to comprehend but unable to fluently speak their heritage language; these are the so-called "overhearers" (Au et al 2008;Chang 2016). The variability among heritage speakers derives from the many pathways that lead to the attainment of language under bilingualism, with significant variation in the amount and quality of input.…”

“…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).…”

Relationship between perceptual accuracy and information measures: A cross-linguistic study

“…Fifteen native Korean listeners were recruited 2 It is well-known that release bursts of post-vocalic (coda) stops affects and changes perceptibility of stops (Kochetov & So 2007, Malécot 1956, Repp 1984. Although the production of English stops often accompanies a release burst (Henderson & Repp 1982), or at least is considered a more canonical form among many allophonic variants (Sumner & Samuel 2005, Chang 2014), data from speech corpora suggest that a substantial proportion of stops are produced unreleased (Davidson 2011). Furthermore, in a context such as consonant clusters, the rate of the occurrence of unreleased stop clusters is even greater intramorphemically and intermorphemically (Bergier 2014).…”