eugene h. buder linda jarmulowicz d. kimbrough oller

NOVA Comprehensive Perspectives on Child Speech Development and Disorders

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Chapter 14Acquisition of the English Voicing Contrast by

Native Spanish-Speaking Children: Phonological Development in Voice Onset

Times

Eugene H. BuderLinda JarmulowiczD. Kimbrough Oller


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Introduction

• Background on simultaneous and sequential language acquisition in Chapter 13 (MacLeod)– “Unitary System” hypothesis– “Dual System” hypothesis

• Young children acquiring two languages may show phonetic interaction effects that can be measured acoustically but not always reliably heard

• This chapter describes a phonetic approach to the speech of a 4-year-old child with Spanish as L1 and English as L2


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Review of Voice Onset Times in Stop Production

• Stop gap• Burst• Aspiration• Voicing• Voice Onset Time (VOT)

– Prevoiced (negative VOT)– Short-lag– Long-lag

• English contrasts– Short-lag unaspirated vs. long-lag aspirated

• Spanish contrasts– Prevoiced vs. short-lag unaspirated

• How do young Spanish- children deal with a different set of categories when acquiring English?


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Figure 14. 1 The word “secure” spoken by a female adult who is a native speaker of English


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Table 14.1 Understanding the International Phonetic Alphabet system for Universal Transcription of Voicing Contrasts in English and Spanish


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Spanish-English Bilingualism: Early Acquisition and L1 Effects

• “Phonology and Literacy in Early Bilinguals” (Oller, Jarmulowicz, and Buder) – Word lists for English and Spanish words

• Coronal phonemes in word initial, medial, and final position

• Recorded as spoken by native speakers– Repetition task– Spanish-speaking girl, age 5;4 at beginning of study,

5;10 at follow-up– Exposure to English at beginning of schooling


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Figure 14.2 Stimulus word “depende”: Spanish word-initial “d” [d] is prevoiced

Figure 14.3 Stimulus word “tazas”: Spanish word initial “t” [t] is short lag unaspirated


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Figure 14.4 Stimulus word “dizzy”: English word-initial “d” [t] is short lag unaspirated

Figure 14.5 Stimulus word “tardy”: English word-initial “t” [th] is long lag aspirated


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Figure 14.6 “Donut ” produced by SF1 at age 5;4: English word-initial “d” [t] is correctly produced with short lag unaspirated VOT


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• In the early stage of acquiring English, SF1 produced the Spanish contrasts (prevoicing, short lag unaspirated) correctly

• She also produced the English contrasts (short lag unaspirated, long lag aspirated) correctly


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Figure 14.7 “Toot” produced by SF1 at age 5;4: English word-initial “t” [th] is correctly produced with long lag aspirated VOT


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Figure 14.8 “Dedos” produced by SF1 at age 5;4: Spanish word-initial “d” [d] is correctly produced with prevoicing


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Figure 14.9 “Tarde” produced by SF1 at age 5;4: Spanish word-initial “t” [t] is correctly produced with short lag unaspirated VOT


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• Six months later, at age 5;10, SF1 produced the English contrasts (short lag unaspirated, long lag aspirated) correctly

• However, by this time, she no longer produced the Spanish contrasts correctly– Substituted short lag unaspirated for prevoicing– Spanish “t” was still produced acceptably with short lag times of under 30

ms.• A second child, SF2, also eliminated prevoicing in Spanish words in

the first 6 months of exposure to English but produced half of her English “d” onsets with prevoicing

• Possible interpretation: Bilingual children may initially target natural ‘universal’ phonetic categories but later attend to language-specific contrasts.


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Figure 14.10 “Depende” produced by SF1 at age 5;10: Spanish word-initial prevoiced [d] is now produced with short lag unaspirated VOT

Figure 14.11 “Dedos” produced by SF1 at age 5;10: Spanish word-initial prevoiced [d] is now produced with short lag unaspirated VOT


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Interpreting the Crosslinguistic Effects

• Main findings from the present study– English voicing contrast was acquired soon after

immersion– Spanish prevoicing deteriorated

• Similar findings in a study of a 3-year-old Dutch child acquiring English (Simon, 2010)– Fast acquisition of English VOT contrast– Dutch prevoicing shifted toward short lags


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Concluding Remarks

• This study exemplifies the utility of acoustic measures to investigate interaction effects between two languages.

• It had been speculated that short lags are easier to produce than prevoicing.

• This study illustrates that it may be language-specific contrastivity, rather than specific phonetic targeting, that drives acquisition patterns.

• With more such VOT and transcription data, the patterns illustrated in this chapter could be statistically analyzed.


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Connections

• Chapter 13: Topics in sequential and simultaneous acquisition of a phonological system

• Chapter 2: Tools for measuring acoustic properties of speech

• Chapter 8: Acquisition of a phonological system beyond childhood


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Sidebar 14.1 L1 language degradation

Is this L1 interference phenomenon effect limited to VOT of stops? No! Research at the University of Memphis has illustrated that Spanish-speaking children who enter English-only Kindergarten show very low expressive vocabulary in Spanish within three months (Gibson, Oller, Jarmulowicz, & Ethington, in press; Oller, Jarmulowicz, Pearson, & Cobo-Lewis, 2010). Rapid shift from L1 to L2 has been described as language loss or language attrition (Oller & Jarmulowicz, 2007), and Anderson (2004) notes that children are particularly affected by language loss. A primary characteristic of language loss is a reduction, regression, or stagnation of L1 skills, particularly expressive language skills (Anderson, 1999). This pattern suggests a general loss of access to the native language although receptive skills appear to be maintained to a much greater extent.

eugene h. buder linda jarmulowicz d. kimbrough oller

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