Phonetic equivalence in the acquisition of /l/ by Spanish–English bilingual children

Abstract

<jats:p>Spanish [l] is characterized as clear, and is associated with a high second formant (F2) frequency and a large difference between F2 and the first formant (F1) frequencies. In contrast, English [l] is darker (with a lower F2 and a relatively smaller F2–F1 difference) and also exhibits contextual variation due to an allophonic velarization rule that further darkens [l] postvocalically. We aimed to determine if Spanish–English bilingual children evidence these differences productively, in a manner comparable to that of monolinguals, or if they produce an [l] that is intermediate to that of Spanish and English monolinguals. We acoustically analyzed [l] productions of seven Spanish–English bilingual, seven Spanish monolingual, and seven English monolingual children. Results showed that the bilinguals had similar prevocalic F2 and F2–F1 values for [l] in both languages, comparable to those of Spanish monolinguals, but significantly higher than those of English monolinguals. The bilinguals also produced English (but not Spanish) [l] with significantly lower postvocalic F2 and F2–F1 values. We assume that the bilinguals have a merged phonetic category for prevocalic [l] but not postvocalic [l], and further, that they maintain separate grammars, allowing the allophonic velarization rule to apply in English but not Spanish.</jats:p>

Influence of current input–output and age of first exposure on phonological acquisition in early bilingual Spanish–English‐speaking kindergarteners

“…Barlow et al . () found that the acoustic features of Spanish–English bilingual children's production of the phoneme /l/ in English differed from the features of /l/ production in English‐speaking monolingual children. Thus, our broad phonetic transcription may not have captured ways in which bilingual children's production of sounds is perceived to be in some way non‐native or ‘accented’ and thus difficult for adults to understand.…”

Vowel reduction in word-final position by early and late Spanish-English bilinguals

“…F2-F1 values serve as an indicator of a vowel’s corresponding position in the oral cavity along the vertical and anterior-posterior dimensions [103–105]. Acoustic qualities of vowels are affected more by the gender of the speaker at the F0 level than at higher F1 and F2 formant bandwidths [105]. Moreover, vowel normalization procedures have been less effectively applied to multiple formant frequencies than to altering one single frequency (e.g.…”

Age of acquisition and allophony in Spanish-English bilinguals

“…It is widely established that a bilingual’s two languages interact; this interaction happens during the acquisition process for both children and adults, and continues after the languages have been mastered with native-like competence (Paradis, 2001a, b; Cook, 2003; Flege et al, 2003; Fabiano and Goldstein, 2005; Flege, 2007; Barlow et al, 2013). Such interaction has been described at numerous levels of linguistic structure, from pragmatic to syntactic to lexical to phonological (e.g., Pavlenko and Jarvis, 2002; Cook, 2003; Dussias, 2003; Flege et al, 2003; Dussias and Sagarra, 2007; Flege, 2007; Amengual, 2012).…”