Acquisition of vowel duration conditioning in RussianScottish English bilingual children

1
Acquisition of vowel duration conditioning in
Russian-Scottish English bilingual children

• Olga Gordeeva
• 5th International Symposium on Bilingualism
• March 20-23, 2005 Barcelona

2
Acquisition 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)

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Acquisition 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)

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Background of bilingual subjects
subject BS (34 to 45)
subject AN (38 to 45)
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Crosslinguistic 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)
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SSE monolingual acquisition of the SVLR
/i/ in sheep feet seed cheese peas
// in cook put food shoes
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Post-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
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Postvocalic 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
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Postvocalic 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
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Patterns 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
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Patterns 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)
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Systematicity 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

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Structure 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)

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Longitudinal effects on language differentiation
lack of language differentiation involved only
variables involving vowel duration (not vowel
quality or vocal effort)
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Conclusions

• 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?