/l/ production in English-Arabic bilingual speakers

Abstract

This paper reports an analysis of /l/ production by English-Arabic bilingual children. It addresses the question of whether the bilingual develops one phonological system or two by calling for a refinement of the notion of a system using insights from recent phonetic and sociolinguistic work on variability in speech. The bilingual subjects that were chosen for the study are three Lebanese children aged 5, 7, and 10, all born and raised in Yorkshire, England. Monolingual friends of the same age were chosen as controls, and the parents of all bilingual and monolingual children were also taped to obtain a detailed assessment of the sound patterns available in the subjects' environment. The bilinguals were taped in different language sessions with different interviewers. /l/ was chosen due to the existence of different patterns for clear and dark variants in its production in English and Arabic that vary according to contextual and dialectal factors. Results show that bilinguals have developed separate/l/ production patterns for each of their languages that are similar to those of monolinguals, and that the interaction between their two languages is restricted to the bilingual mode and is a sign of their sociolinguistic competence.

Phonetic convergence and divergence strategies in English-Arabic bilingual children

“…Examples of convergence included reverting back to Arabic Brought to you by | Purdue University Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 6/3/15 2:35 AM when the mothers encouraged them to do so or persevering with the English switches but applying Arabic phonetics to them (Examples (15), (17), (18), (20), (21), (23)). The resulting accented pronunciations were very similar to those found in the parents' English accent, as evidenced in some of the examples here (Examples (2), (17), (21), (23)) but also elsewhere (Khattab 2002a(Khattab , 2002b(Khattab , 2002c(Khattab , 2003(Khattab , 2006(Khattab , 2007(Khattab , 2011, and suggest that the children might be applying phonetic accommodation as a way of converging to the speech of their interlocutor. Sometimes, the accented patterns were exaggerated versions of the parents' foreign accent (Examples (7), (15)) and may suggest that the children are aware of particular phonetic features that convey "Arabic-ness" and can exaggerate them for particular effects.…”

“…The decision on whether the utterances displayed English-like or Arabic-like phonetics was made following both auditory and acoustic analyses of the productions in questions. Quantitative results for these analyses have been reported elsewhere (Khattab 2002a(Khattab , 2002b(Khattab , 2002c(Khattab , 2003(Khattab , 2006(Khattab , 2007(Khattab , 2011. Here we concentrate on analyses of the actual interactions that led to the phonetic patterns observed (Section 4.3).…”

“…The sessions normally lasted between 30 and 45 minutes. Previous work has reported on the children's performance in the English sessions with their monolingual friends and with the investigator (e.g., Khattab 2002aKhattab , 2002bKhattab , 2002cKhattab , 2003Khattab , 2006Khattab , 2007. In these sessions, the children used only English and an analysis of a collection of accent variables suggested that their accent sounded nativelike and that they had acquired a combination of Yorkshire English accent features, more general northern English features, and standard-like features in their speech.…”

The language and literacy development of young dual language learners: A critical review

“…Specifically, a case study of two Japanese-English DLLs found that the children’s ability to differentiate the voice onset time for voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) in their two languages emerged as children developed (Johnson & Wilson, 2002). Additionally, studies of DLL preschoolers’ learning a variety of languages, including Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese and living in different countries demonstrated that DLL children’s phonetic inventories (i.e., the range of speech sounds produced) are as complex as monolinguals during the preschool years (Fabiano-Smith & Barlow, 2010; Gildersleeve-Neumann, Kester, Davis, & Peña, 2008; Gildersleeve-Neumann & Wright, 2010; Khattab, 2002; Lin & Johnson, 2010). Sequential language learners, or children who began learning their second language after age three, appear to use their knowledge of their L1 to aid them in acquiring the phonological system of their L2 (Anderson, 2004).…”

Listener evaluation of sociophonetic variability: Probing constraints and capabilities

“…One focus of the interaction between these two ields that has had relatively little attention, however, relates to how children, as they acquire knowledge of the phonological patterning of their native language, learn to produce and perceptually evaluate the social-indexical properties of speech which are relevant to their speech community. The evidence that is available suggests that children learn to manipulate and interpret these properties in a way integral to phonological learning more generally (Foulkes et al 2005;Khattab 2007;Smith et al 2007;Barbu et al this issue). However, there has been very little progress made in tracking the emergence of such properties within children's speech or their developing sensitivities to the sociophonetic variability to which they are exposed.…”