Phonetic convergence and divergence strategies in English-Arabic bilingual children

Abstract

This paper examines the role that multiple models of English play in the daily interactions of English-Arabic bilingual children growing up in the UK and how these models are harnessed for communicative purposes. Bilingual children are often regularly exposed to standard, nonstandard, and non-native varieties of either of their languages. These varieties constitute the source of phonological knowledge for these children and influence their sociolinguistic development (Khattab 2009). The bilinguals' sociolinguistic competence not only concerns their ability to switch between languages, but also to switch between native and non-native varieties for communicative purposes. To illustrate this behavior we report on convergence and divergence patterns by three English-Arabic bilingual children aged 5, 7, and 10, growing up in Yorkshire, England. The aim is to explore the role of social, contextual, and interactional factors in shaping the bilinguals' English accent and their developing sociophonetic competence. Semi-structured interactions between the children and their mothers are analyzed for language use and within that, for specific phonetic aspects of the children's English accent in English-only and in codeswitched utterances.Results show that the bilinguals' English codeswitches exhibit systematic patterns in their usage of variants from one language or the other, and from one English variety or the other, depending on the communicative situation. This suggests that bilinguals acquire both native (local and supra local) and non-native features of English and seem to harness phonetic detail from these varieties for divergence or convergence strategies. The results also suggest that bilinguals may constantly move between bilingual and monolingual modes during the course of the interaction depending on the needs of the situation.

Prosodic structures and templates in bilingual phonological development

“…Consider the following anecdotal bilingual production phenomena that reveal unconscious links and involuntary access based at least partly on cross-linguistic phonological similarity: Estonian luik /luik/ “swan”, produced by a fluent adult bilingual for järv /jærv/ “lake”, with probable phonological interference from English lake – possibly influenced by the thematic (and collocational) “swan”-”lake” association; mushrooms , produced by a bilingual 6-year-old for Estonian neerud /ne:rut/ “(cooked) kidneys” – the slip apparently mediated by the phonological association of neerud with Estonian seened /se:net/ “mushrooms” (Ce:CV plus plural - d ), perhaps supported by the visual similarity of the foods (Vihman, 1981, p. 249). Mysteriously, the associated Estonian word itself was not accessed at the moment of production. socket , produced by an Arabic-English bilingual 7-year-old, in a picture-naming activity, for Arabic [sˤɑtəl] “bucket” (Khattab, 2013, p. 455). Production, as part of a counting routine, of the English number nine , a homonym of Welsh nain /naɪn/ “grandma”, led a Welsh preschool child to spontaneously add: a taid “and grandpa” – showing that she had suddenly noticed the cross-linguistic phonetic association. …”

“…socket , produced by an Arabic-English bilingual 7-year-old, in a picture-naming activity, for Arabic [sˤɑtəl] “bucket” (Khattab, 2013, p. 455).…”

Linguistic variation, identity construction and cognition

“…For example, Bucholtz (2010: 110-115) demonstrates how quotative variants used by high school students were influenced by a combination of the speaker's stance and their social group: preppy students were more likely to use be all when taking a neutral stance, whereas non-preppy students were more likely to use be all when taking a non-neutral stance. In her study on phonetic realisations of bilingual children, Kattab (2013) shows how the children sometimes adopt phonetic features from their parents' non-native English accents to do social work, shifting between native-like and non-native-like realisations in socially-meaningful ways. This work demonstrates how a single linguistic variant can be used to achieve multiple (and, in some cases, quite different) social goals.…”

When L1 becomes an L3: Do heritage speakers make better L3 learners?

“…Y. Kang and Nagy (2012) likewise found no difference in the VOTs for aspirated and lenis stops produced by native Korean speakers from Seoul compared to those produced by HSs (“Generation 2”) born and raised in Toronto; moreover, HSs demonstrated the same male/female VOT contrasts observed in modern-day Seoul Korean. Meanwhile, Khattab (2003, 2006, 2013) shows that Arabic HSs living in the UK have different VOTs for rhotics and laterals than monolinguals do.…”