On the nuclear intonational phonology of heritage speakers of Spanish

Rao, Rajiv

doi:10.1075/sibil.49.04rao

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…For example, HLLs may experience insecurities about the grammatical aspects of the Spanish language (e.g., knowledge of accent marks, word order) which may cause them to feel insecure about their writing skills. Another source of writing anxiety for HLLs could be their lack of understanding of the Spanish language as a system (i.e., grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic competence; de Haan & van Esch, 2005;Rao, 2016). HLLs with limited formal Spanish educational experiences may struggle to complete writing assignments; subsequently, they experience higher levels of writing anxiety.…”

Section: Writing Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of Writing Anxiety and Self-Efficacy Among Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Torres

Arrastia-Chisholm

Tackett

2018

Journal of Hispanic Higher Education

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Many Hispanics living in the United States have limited Spanish language abilities particularly in relation to literacy skills. This study investigated 25 Hispanic heritage language learners’ (HLLs) perceptions of their Spanish language writing abilities. During interview sessions, participants described the aspects of writing that were the easiest and most difficult for them to acquire. Findings revealed that HLLs experienced difficulties with accent rules, correct spelling, and conjugations. Additional findings, limitations, and further research are discussed.

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Section: Writing Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of Writing Anxiety and Self-Efficacy Among Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Torres

Arrastia-Chisholm

Tackett

2018

Journal of Hispanic Higher Education

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“…While research on the phonetics of heritage Spanish is beginning to receive more attention (e.g., Alvord and Rogers (2014), Ronquest (2012) for vowels; Amengual (2016c), Henriksen (2015) for rhotics; and Kim (2016), Rao (2016), Robles-Puente (2014), for suprasegmentals), we still do not have a clear understanding of how individuals produce their heritage language as a function of their type of early bilingualism. The question that remains unanswered is if acquiring both languages from birth, as in the context of simultaneous bilingualism or acquiring the L2 at a somewhat later age in the case of early sequential bilingualism has an effect on the acoustic realization of language-specific phonological processes in the heritage language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Type of early bilingualism and its effect on the acoustic realization of allophonic variants: Early sequential and simultaneous bilinguals

Amengual

2017

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This study examines the acoustic realization of phrase-initial voiced stops (/b, d, g/) and intervocalic voiced approximants ([β, ð, ɣ]) in Spanish by three groups of Spanish–English bilinguals: simultaneous bilinguals, early sequential bilinguals, and late second language (L2) Spanish learners to investigate if the type of early bilingualism has an effect on the acoustic realization of language-specific phonological processes. Design/Methodology/Approach: Early bilinguals were divided into two groups (simultaneous and sequential bilinguals), and together with late learners (L2 Spanish learners) they were recorded producing words eliciting phrase-initial and intervocalic voiced stops. Data and Analysis: The acoustic analyses examined the difference between the intensity minimum during the consonant and the intensity maximum of the following tautosyllabic vowel (intensity difference). The dataset comprised a total of 3,569 acoustic measurements. Findings/Conclusions: The group of early sequential bilinguals shows a significantly stronger tendency to produce a more lenited intervocalic segment than simultaneous bilinguals and L2 learners, who produce a more constricted realization. These data indicate that simultaneous bilinguals and L2 learners, who were exposed to English since birth, differ from early bilinguals who were exclusively exposed to Spanish for the first years of their life when applying the Spanish allophonic rule governing the distribution of voiced stops and spirants. Originality: This is one of the first studies that investigates the effects of the type of early bilingualism on bilingual phonetic performance in adulthood, especially in terms of bilingual phonetic production. These novel data examine the acoustic realization of Spanish heritage speakers, a largely understudied bilingual population. Significance/Implications: The findings suggest that the type of early bilingualism in language development, even at a very early age, still has consequences on the acoustic realization of allophonic variants in adulthood.

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“…Although research on heritage language intonation is scarce, studies have shown that heritage speakers are different from monolingual speakers in the distribution of pitch accents and boundary tones (Dehé 2018;Queen 2001;Rao 2016;Robles-Puente 2014), in the phonetic implementation of pitch accents (Colantoni et al 2016;Zuban et al 2020), or in the use of prosody to express pragmatic functions (Bullock 2009;Hoot 2017;Kim 2019). Some possible explanations for heritage speakers' divergent intonation patterns are the emergence of new tonal categories due to hybridization of heritage and majority language categories (Queen 2001;Rao 2016), the mix of intonation patterns or prosodic strategies found in both heritage and majority languages (Bullock 2009;Kim 2019;Robles-Puente 2014), or the use of fine-grained acoustic cues similar to or approaching those in the majority language (Colantoni et al 2016;Zuban et al 2020). That is, due to pressure from the majority language, heritage speakers may be forced to restructure their phonological grammars.…”

Section: Variability In the Intonation Of Heritage Languages And Monolingual Varietiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The intonation contours of IP-final rises were labeled using the Sp_ToBI labeling conventions (Beckman et al 2002;De la Mota et al 2010;Estebas-Vilaplana and Prieto 2009;Prieto and Roseano 2010). First, a limited set of possible nuclear configurations of rising contours were determined with special reference to the ones reported in monolingual Mexican Spanish (De la Mota et al 2010) and heritage Mexican Spanish (Rao 2016;Robles-Puente 2014). Table 2 presents the nuclear configurations considered in this study.…”

Section: Coding and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This process will be helpful in determining whether English-like patterns in heritage speakers' uptalk in Spanish are indeed present in their uptalk in English. As presented in Section 1.1, heritage speakers may create new tonal categories through hybridization of heritage and majority language categories (Queen 2001;Rao 2016), take intonation patterns or prosodic strategies from both languages (Bullock 2009;Kim 2019;Robles-Puente 2014), or demonstrate fine-grained acoustic properties that are similar to or approaching those in the majority language (Colantoni et al 2016;Zuban et al 2020). Thus, by comparing heritage speakers' uptalks in Spanish and English, we would be able to explain whether heritage speakers share the same categories in their two languages, add some English categories to the Spanish uptalk inventory, or maintain separate categories, but the Spanish categories show phonetic assimilation to the ones in English.…”

Section: Toward An Understanding Of the Sources Of Divergence In Heritage Speakers' Uptalksmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Keeping a Critical Eye on Majority Language Influence: The Case of Uptalk in Heritage Spanish

Kim

Repiso-Puigdelliura

2021

Languages

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The goal of this study is to highlight the importance of taking into account variations in monolingual grammars before discussing majority language influence as a possible source of heritage speakers’ divergent grammars. In this study, we examine the production of uptalk in Spanish by heritage speakers of Mexican Spanish in Southern California. Uptalk (i.e., rising intonation contour at the end of a non-question utterance) is frequently associated with California English. Thus, heritage speakers’ use of uptalk is often considered to be influenced from English intonation (i.e., the majority language). Although uptalk in Spanish is not well understood, it has been observed in Mexican Spanish, which calls attention to the importance of investigating uptalk in monolingual Spanish. Using a dyadic interaction task, we obtained spontaneous speech data of 16 heritage speakers and 16 monolingual speakers of Mexican Spanish and compared the phonological and phonetic properties of uptalks produced by the two groups. Our results demonstrated that the heritage speakers and the monolingual speakers produced uptalks with similar frequencies and mainly used L+H* HH% and L* HH% contours. However, the two groups had more differences than similarities. Specifically, heritage speakers’ uptalks presented less dynamic contours and were produced with flatter rises than monolinguals’ uptalks. Heritage speakers’ divergent patterns showed close resemblance with patterns in English, suggesting majority language influence as a valid source of divergence. We discuss possible avenues for future research for a better understanding of the role of majority language influence on heritage Spanish uptalk.

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On the nuclear intonational phonology of heritage speakers of Spanish

Cited by 18 publications

References 37 publications

Perceptions of Writing Anxiety and Self-Efficacy Among Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Perceptions of Writing Anxiety and Self-Efficacy Among Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Type of early bilingualism and its effect on the acoustic realization of allophonic variants: Early sequential and simultaneous bilinguals

Keeping a Critical Eye on Majority Language Influence: The Case of Uptalk in Heritage Spanish

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