VOT merger in Heritage Korean in Toronto

Abstract

Korean has a typologically unusual three-way laryngeal contrast in voiceless stops among aspirated, lenis, and fortis stops. Seoul Korean is undergoing a female-led sound change in which aspirated stops and lenis stops are merging in voice onset time (VOT) and are better distinguished by the F0 (fundamental frequency) of the following vowel than by their VOT, in younger speakers' speech. This paper compares the VOT pattern of Homeland (Seoul) and Heritage (Toronto) Korean speakers and finds that the same change is in progress in both. However, in the heritage variety, younger speakers do not advance the change, unlike their Seoul counterparts. Rather they have leveled off or are perhaps reversing the change, and there is very little sex difference among the younger heritage speakers' patterns. We consider possible accounts of the differences between the Seoul and Toronto patterns, building our understanding of how language-internal variation operates in bilingual speakers, a topic that has received relatively less attention in the variationist literature.

Variation and change in Toronto heritage Cantonese

“…In some cases, sex based patterns may even be completely reversed. Kang and Nagy (2012) report similar findings in a comparison between Homeland and Toronto Heritage Korean.…”

A study of L1 phonetic drift in the voice onset times of Korean learners of English with long L2 exposure*

“…Since Silva (2006), numerous studies have shown that older speakers tend to maintain a three-way VOT categorization (tense< lax<aspirated) whereas younger speakers tend to show a two-way VOT categorization (tense<lax=aspirated) (see also Kang & Guion, 2008 and among others). With respect to the effect of gender on VOT, the VOT merger is more robust in female speakers' speech than in male speakers' speech (Kang & Nagy, 2016;Kim, 2014Kim, , 2017Oh, 2011; and many others). For the effect of dialect on VOT, the merger is more advanced in Seoul dialect than in non-Seoul dialects (Choi, 2002;Kang & Han, 2013;Lee & Jongman, 2012;Oh & Yang, 2013).…”

“…With respect to the role of language contact in sound change, a number of studies have shown that the sound change mainly occurs in Seoul Korean, the standard dialect of Korean, but not in non-Seoul Korean dialects (Choi, 2002;Kim, 2014;Lee & Jongman, 2012). Some studies have shown that the change can also occur to Korean speakers residing abroad, or heritage Korean speakers in Shenyang or Toronto (Jin, 2008;Kang & Guion, 2008;Kang & Nagy, 2016;Oh & Yang, 2013). As for the influence of L2 English on L1 Korean, Kim (2011) reports that the merger phenomenon in the L1 system is more robust for L2 advanced speakers than for L2 beginners because of the amount of L2 experience.…”

Parallel Voice Onset Time shift in Chinese Korean

“…Instead, fundamental frequency (F0) at the onset of the immediately following vowel, which is generally agreed to be the lowest for lax, higher for tense, and highest for aspirated stops, has become the primary cue (Kang, 2014;Kang and Guion, 2006;Kim, Beddor, & Horrocks, 2002;Kim & Stoel-Gammon, 2009;Park & Iverson, 2008;Silva, 2006). Interestingly, this new innovative pattern is also observed among younger Korean speakers in an English-speaking country, Canada (Kang & Nagy, 2016), which is geographically remote from the Korean homeland. Is the same VOT shift also going on in other Korean varieties?…”