Assessing the production of liquid consonants by English-Spanish bilinguals in the Midwest

Language contact between two communities can lead to phonetic transfer and sound change in bilingual contexts, as is the case of English-Spanish contact in the United States. U.S.-born bilingual Hispanics, also known as heritage speakers of Spanish, often demonstrate a perception of the heritage language that is comparable to that of monolingually-raised speakers (Abrahamson & Hyltenstam, 2009; Boomershine, 2013; Kim, 2015, 2016; Lukyanchenko & Gor, 2011) but are more variable in terms of their actual articulations. This variability can be affected by internal and external factors, including age of onset of bilingualism and language identity (Amengual, 2018; Barlow, 2014; Barlow et al., 2014; Chang et al., 2008, 2011; Godson, 2004; Kim & Repiso-Puigdelliura, 2020; Kissling, 2018; Kupisch et al., 2014; Ronquest, 2013). Despite growing research, relatively little is known regarding heritage speakers’ productions of late-acquired and articulatorily-complex sounds in the majority language, as these bilinguals are often assumed to be native-like when speaking English (Polinsky, 2018). Currently, no large-scale study has examined majority-language and minority-language sound change within this community (Fought, 2002; Grosjean, 2008; Montrul, 2016). In order to understand the normal range of bilingual variability in English-Spanish articulations, it is imperative to assess both the majority language and the heritage language of bilingual speakers with different ages of language acquisition and language identities. This dissertation fills this gap by examining the production of articulatorily-complex and late-acquired liquid phonemes in English and Spanish by adult bilingual heritage speakers in the United States with varying exposures to both languages in childhood. Three theoretical models – the Perceptual Assimilation Model, the Second Language Linguistic Perception Model, and the Speech Learning Model (Best et al., 1988; Best & Tyler, 2007; Escudero, 2005; Escudero & Boersma, 2003, 2004; Flege, 1991, 1995, 2007; Flege & Bohm 2020) – were examined and compared according to four research questions asking (1) whether heritage speakers with different ages of onset of bilingualism performed differently from each other, (2) whether heritage speakers performed differently from monolingually-raised speakers, and whether these differences (3) were conditioned by language identity, as operationalized through the use of the language proficiency, language immersion, and multilingual language diversity scores output by the Language History Questionnaire (Li et al., 2020), and (4) were perceptible by monolingually-raised listeners. Specifically, the present study recorded the articulation of Spanish [ɾ] and [r] (Study 1), English [ɹ] (Study 2), and Spanish and English [l] and [ɫ] (Study 3) by four adult participant groups with varying childhood exposure to one or both languages through the use of a storytelling task, a picture naming task, and an accent rating task. The results of the three studies showed heritage speakers with more exposure to Spanish in early childhood to perform more similarly to monolingually-raised Spanish speakers than heritage speakers with no monolingual Spanish exposure in childhood for their production of Spanish rhotics, and showed heritage speakers with more exposure to English in childhood to perform more similarly to monolingually-raised English speakers than heritage speakers with no early English language input for their production of English laterals. Surprisingly, the heritage speakers were not found to differ in their Spanish lateral productions to each other or to monolingually-raised speakers. Furthermore, language identity (specifically, the language immersion and language dominance scores output by the Language History Questionnaire) was found to affect heritage speaker productions, with those heritage speakers reporting longer immersion and a dominance in the heritage language patterning more similarly to the L1 Spanish speakers, and vice versa, particularly in their productions of Spanish rhotics and the English liquid consonant system overall. These production differences were perceptible by monolingually-raised listeners of each language, who rated heritage speakers with the least amount of childhood input in that language as least likely to be native speakers. The results of this dissertation contribute to the measurement of phonetic development and speech variation by English-Spanish bilinguals in the United States and address the theoretical claims about the transformative and lasting impact of early linguistic exposure on phonology; specifically, that a bilingual’s divergence from monolingual norms begins early in bilingual development, persists despite weak proficiency in and infrequency of use of the other language, and is conditioned by the speaker’s language identity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Cummings, Laura D

Contributors dc:contributor

• Montrul, Silvina
• Hualde, Jose Ignacio
• Shosted, Ryan
• Barlaz, Marissa

• Heritage Speakers
• Liquid Consonants
• Bilingualism

Statement dc:rights

• © 2022 Laura D. Cummings

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117749

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F117749