Acquisition of vowel duration conditioning in Russian-Scottish 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 bilingual’s languages differentiated? “Yes” Genesee, 1989; Genesee et al., 1995; de Houwer, 1995; Deuchar & Quay, 2000; Petitto, 2001; Keshavarz & Ingram, 2002 • early simultaneous bilinguals (3;4 to 4;5) • a version of the two systems is already acquired • Do they interact? • “Yes” (Petersen, 1988; Döpke, 1998;Schlyter, 1993; Müller, 1998; Döpke, 2000; Paradis, 2001; Kehoe, 2002; Lleó, 2002) • Autonomous or interdependent development? (Paradis &Genessee, 1996)

3. 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)

4. Background of bilingual subjects subject BS (3;4 to 4;5) subject AN (3;8 to 4;5)

5. 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)

6. SSE monolingual acquisition of the SVLR /i/ in ‘sheep’ ‘feet’ ‘seed’ ‘cheese’ ‘peas’ /¬/ in ‘cook’ ‘put’ ‘food’ ‘shoes’

7. 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” AN’s MSR/SSE production of postvocalic conditioning was significantly different But 1st age sample non-differentiated

8. 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” AN’s MSR/SSE production of postvocalic conditioning was significantly different But in the 1st / 2nd age samples it was differentiated in the unexpected direction

9. 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

10. 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’

11. Patterns of Language Interaction (cont.) • ANproduced 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)

12. 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

13. 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)

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

15. 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?