Title: Acquisition of vowel duration conditioning in RussianScottish English bilingual children
1Acquisition of vowel duration conditioning in
Russian-Scottish English bilingual children
- Olga Gordeeva
- 5th International Symposium on Bilingualism
- March 20-23, 2005 Barcelona
2Acquisition of Sound Structure
- Are bilinguals languages differentiated?
- ?Yes Genesee, 1989 Genesee et al., 1995 de
Houwer, 1995 Deuchar Quay, 2000 Petitto,
2001 Keshavarz Ingram, 2002 - early simultaneous bilinguals (34 to 45)
- a version of the two systems is already acquired
- Do they interact?
- Yes (Petersen, 1988 Döpke, 1998Schlyter,
1993 Müller, 1998 - Döpke, 2000 Paradis, 2001 Kehoe, 2002 Lleó,
2002) - Autonomous or interdependent development?
- (Paradis Genessee, 1996)
3Acquisition of Sound Structure (cont.)
- What are sources structure or input (or both)?
- Cross-language cue competition hypothesis (Döpke,
1998, 2000) - Markedness Hypothesis (Müller, 1998)
- Language Dominance Hypothesis (Petersen, 1988)
- What are the patterns of interaction
- Kehoe, 2002 Whitworth, 2002 for vowel duration
- merged categories in L2 acquisition (Mack,
1982)
4Background of bilingual subjects
subject BS (34 to 45)
subject AN (38 to 45)
5Crosslinguistic differences in focus
?SSE A systematic and large in extent
postvocalic conditioning of vowel duration
(SVLR) checked /i/ and // are long before
voiced fricatives and short in other consonantal
contexts (Aitken, 1981 Scobbie et al., 1999a
Scobbie et al., 1999b) ? MSR A less clear-cut
system of postvocalic conditioning of vowel
duration (Chen, 1970 Keating,1985 Gordeeva et
al., 2003)
6SSE monolingual acquisition of the SVLR
/i/ in sheep feet seed cheese peas
// in cook put food shoes
7Post-vocalic conditioning of /i/ (more equally
balanced bilingual AN)
SVLR was not significantly different from
Scottish English peers But in 1st age sample
reduced extent for the long vowel
ANs MSR/SSE production of postvocalic
conditioning was significantly different But 1st
age sample non-differentiated
8Postvocalic conditioning of // /u/ (more equally
balanced bilingual AN)
SVLR was not significantly different from
Scottish English peers But in the 1st age sample
she produced a reduced extent for the long vowel
ANs MSR/SSE production of postvocalic
conditioning was significantly different But in
the 1st / 2nd age samples it was differentiated
in the unexpected direction
9Postvocalic conditioning of /i/ (Russian
dominant bilingual BS)
SVLR different from Scottish English peers
(factor bilinguality)
Russian/Scottish English are not
differentiated Statistically insignificant
difference towards the 3rd age sample
10Patterns of Language Interaction
- both BS AN produced unidirectional effects
from MSR to SSE a merged system - the effect is similar to those observed
L2-acquisition - (Mack,1982 Markus Bond, 1999)
Transfer or Delay? (Genessee Paradis,
1996) Kehoe (2002) ? Delay
11Patterns of Language Interaction (cont.)
- AN produced bi-directional patterns for
postvocalic conditioning of SSE // and MSR /u/ - similar to patterns observed in L2 acquisition
- intonation (Mennen, 2004)
- VOT studies (Caramazza et al. 1973 Flege, 1987
Williams, 1980)
The bi-directionality is problematic for CCCH
(Döpke, 1998, 2000) Markedness Hypothesis
(Müller, 1998) Language Dominance
Hypothesis (Petersen, 1988)
12Systematicity of Language Interaction
- Contextually inappropriate mixed utterances have
been explained as unrepaired slips of the
tongue - (De Houwer, 1995)
- The data on vowel duration in this study suggests
systematicity rather than an incidental
occurrence - present longitudinally in 2 out of 3 age samples
- present in the speech of both subjects despite
individual differences in language exposure - patterns are coherent to L2-studies and other
simultaneous bilingual acquisition studies
13Structure or Exposure? or both?
- Formal structural complexity does not necessarily
determine the direction of language interaction - The presence of bi-directional effects
contradicts unidirectional language interaction
hypotheses Cross-language cue competition
hypothesis (Döpke, 1998, 2000) Markedness
Hypothesis (Müller, 1998) - Language exposure seems important, but can
produce fuzzy bi-directional language
interaction effects for structurally ambiguous
sound structures - This contradicts unidirectional Language
Dominance Hypothesis (Petersen, 1988)
14Longitudinal effects on language differentiation
lack of language differentiation involved only
variables involving vowel duration (not vowel
quality or vocal effort)
15Conclusions
- The amount of language differentiation differs
with changing language input conditions
depending on the amount language exposure and its
longitudinal accumulation. - Observed language interaction effects were
systematic. - Both subjects seem to acquire the majority
variety (SSE) despite the presence of other
English varieties in their input - Differences in temporal aspects of speech
phenomena are relatively easily mastered?
(Jenkins Yeni-Komishian, 1995) - Does the relationship between autonomous and
interdependent development have to be
categorical?