First Language Attrition

In this study, we investigate the development of Standard German vowels, concerning their formants, namely F1, F2 and F3, by a young-adult Brazilian female speaker of German as a third language (L3). The methodology entails an acoustic analysis on Praat. We analyze the vowel sounds regarding their relative formant structure, in order to verify whether (or how) they changed along the evaluated sessions by means of a Monte Carlo analysis. As a result of the analysis, we observe that the speaker uses a formant compensation strategy for the production of her German vowels. According to the Speech-Learning Model (SLM-(r)), the speaker altered her formant acoustic cues, i.e. instead of relying on F3 to produce some phonological distinctions in her German vowels, the speaker made use of F2 to account for these distinctions.

This presentation provides a survey of the attrition of Hausa Kinship terms by the language users. The concept of language attrition is associated with language loss, language shift; language change and language death. Language attrition may refer to the loss of words or portions of words in a language by members of a speech community. It may also refer to the declining use of mother tongue skills by those caught in bilingual situations. In Hausa land with particular reference to Zaria Hausa (Zazzau) some lexical attrition takes place within the speech community not only among the elite. Using sociolinguistic methods of analysis, attempt was made to discuss the subject matter from a theoretical point of view. According to Gumperz and Wilson (1981), language attrition is used to explain borrowing, semantic extension, calques, increased use of certain structures due to influence of other languages. The study surveys how terms related to blood relatives' category: (i) the parents, (ii) the grandparents , (iii) the siblings, and (iv) the children; and the collateral relationship: (i) the uncles/aunts, (ii) the nephews/nieces, and (iii) the cousins are disused or decreased in use by Hausa people today and the adopted new terms from English, Arabic and other languages. Primary and secondary sources of data collection were used in carrying out the study. Sixty people, thirty participants aged 7-20 and another thirty participants aged 35-55, were interviewed comprising children of elite, and elite and non-elite parents. Data collected show that language attrition took place among Zaria Hausa speech community particularly among the elite and non-elite. The study contributes to the existing knowledge on how Hausa kinship terms are used by the speakers.

Speech learning model aims to explain the variables contributing to the differences in L2 phonetic productions. Most previous studies comparing L2 vowel production with L1 vowel production mostly attribute the differences to the mother tongue inference, which is also proposed by Speech learning model. However, the past transfer studies show a number of discrepant findings even regarding the same L2 vowel production. Therefore, this systematic review collected past studies compared L2 vowel production with L1 vowel production to understand the causes to the discrepant findings. Relevant articles published 2000 onward were searched with key words, such as "L2 accented English", "vowel space", "L2 Formants", "Chinese-accented English", "comparing Chinese English" in the online database. In the initial search with the key words, 120 articles were found. After two screenings on titles and abstracts, and based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 articles were kept to be reviewed. Another search was conducted by referring to the reference lists of the selected articles. Another 2 articles were added, which is 16 articles totally reviewed in this paper. This review starts with a review on the speech learning model. Then synthesizing and analyzing the collected articles are followed. Pedagogical implications and recommendations for future studies regarding the language transfers studies are discussed.

This study aims to investigate the acoustic properties of the native Pashto and English vowels spoken in District Mianwali. The main purpose of the study is to pin down the similarities and dis similarities in acoustic properties of both the languages vowels. The study adopts a quantitative approach. The participants of the study are selected by convenient based sampling and then categorized into two groups (Group A and Group B). The data was collected through two stimuli, lists of words (Pashto and English). The analysis is carried by applying the speech learning model (SLM). The present study shows that Pashto and English have different number of vowels and these are in dissimilar position on their respective inventories. The comparison of acoustic properties of English vowels with Pashto speakers" acoustic properties proves that these are significantly dissimilar from each other. An analysis of vowels produced by the native speakers of English shows that out of eleven vowels of English, /i:/, /e/ and /ɒː/ are like Pashto vowels and F1 for /ɪ/ and /ɑ:/ of English are like L1 Pashto vowels. F1, F2 for /u:/ and duration values of the vowel /ae/ are also like the native English speakers" corresponding vowels. In addition, F1 for vowel /ae/, F2 for vowel /ʊ/, /ae/ and /ɑ:/ of Pashto learners are neither like L1 Pashto nor like native speakers of English. This work will initiate further linguistic investigations on Pashtoon learners of English. The study concludes that the SLM is valid for the context of English L2 speakers in acquisition of some of the vowels but the model does not account for some dimensions of acquisition of some other vowels of English by Pakistani learners who speak Pashto as L1.

The present study aims to investigate the attrition of English in English language teachers whose native language is Polish. It focuses on the attrition of more advanced vocabulary and structures which are taught in English Philology departments at universities, but which may not be necessary for teachers who teach at the lower levels of education and, as a consequence, they may be especially prone to attrition. At the same time, the study includes a questionnaire aiming to reveal the participants’ attitudes towards linguistic correctness and their strategies of language maintenance. As the results show, some attrition can indeed be observed, yet it must also be remarked that the teachers do try to maintain their proficiency levels in English by using the language in various ways, such as reading books and articles in English, watching films in English, talking to native speakers, etc.

While the focus of bilingual research is frequently on simultaneous or early bilingualism, the interactions between late bilinguals' first language (L1) and second language (L2) have rarely been studied previously. To fill this research gap, the aim of the current study was to investigate the production of vowels in the L1 Mandarin and L2 Cantonese of Mandarin-Cantonese late bilinguals in Hong Kong. A production experiment was conducted with 22 Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals, as well as with 20 native Mandarin speakers and 21 native Cantonese speakers. Acoustic analyses, including formants of and Euclidean distances between the vowels, were performed. Both vowel category assimilation and dissimilation were noted in the Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals' L1 and L2 vowel systems, suggesting interactions between the bilinguals' L1 and L2 vowel categories. In general, the findings are in line with the hypotheses of the Speech Learning Model and its revised version, which state that L1-L2 phonetic interactions are inevitable, as there is a common phonetic space for storing the L1 and L2 phonetic categories, and that learners always have the ability to adapt their phonetic space. Future studies should refine the data elicitation method, increase the sample size and include more language pairs to better understand L1 and L2 phonetic interactions.

The present paper compares different measures of lexical richness in narratives written by Czech EFL learners. The focus is on three groups of lexical richness measures: measures of lexical diversity (saying how many different words are used), lexical sophistication (saying how many advanced words are used) and lexical density (saying what is the proportion of content words in the text). The most frequently used measures representing each group were selected (Tweedie & Baayen 1998; McCarthy 2005; Daller et al. 2007; McCarthy & Jarvis 2010) and used to analyse students’ stories. The main focus of the study is on comparing the relationships between different measures, both within and between the three respective groups. The results show that the three groups are to some extent distinct and therefore measure different kinds of vocabulary knowledge but also that there are relationships between them: the strongest correlations are between measures of lexical diversity and sophistication;...

The paper presents the results of the research into the acquisition of quantitative and qualitative features of English vowels by advanced ESL learners whose native language is Serbian, by investigating the level of attainment of the process of length reduction, known as vowel clipping. Based on the empirical study, the authors compare the property of clipping in English and Serbian, analyze the level of the learners' achievement in acquiring the degree of clipping in their L2 and examine the relation between the acquisition of vocalic quality and quantity in their L2. The results of the study indicate that acquiring quality and quantity are two independent processes, which points to a more complex process of the acquisition of vowels than is traditionally recognized in the literature.

In this study, we explore the possible effect of linguistic attrition on consonant gemination among speakers of Italian living in Australia. We analyse a corpus of spontaneous speech for a group of native Italian speakers who emigrated to Melbourne in Australia between the 1950s and 1970s. Given gemination is a fully lexicalised and stable phenomenon in Italian but not in English, we investigate whether, after many years of living in Australia, the phonological contrast between singleton and geminate consonants in Italian is preserved, or undergoes phonetic shift due to longterm contact with English. An analysis of acoustic durations reveals that all participants produced a significant difference in singleton and geminate consonant length, albeit with variable lengthening ratios. A post-hoc qualitative analysis seems to point to shorter geminate durations for speakers who have lived longer in Australia, but this will need to be supported by further research.

Auditory perceptual experiments with Portuguese L2 are scarce, especially within the scope of the European variety (EP). In this study, we aim at observing the assimilation of the EP vowels [ɐ] and [ɨ] by Hungarian native speakers, and their perceptual learning after some contact with Portuguese. A multiple forced-choice identification experiment was run with two groups of Hungarian speakersa group with and a group without previous contact with EP. The results show that the categorization fell into the closest phonetic categories of the L1. The results also indicate a learning effect for [ɨ], with a recategorization path from [y] to [ø]. As for [ɐ], no major differences were observed between groups. This result is consistent with difficulties observed in the classroom environment, where [ɐ] is particularly challenging to Hungarian learners.

This review aims at clarifying the concept of first language attrition by tracing its limits, identifying its phenomenological and contextual constraints, discussing controversies associated with its definition, and suggesting potential future directions. We start by reviewing different definitions of attrition as well as associated inconsistencies. We then discuss the underlying mechanisms of first language attrition and review available evidence supporting different background hypotheses. Finally, we attempt to provide the groundwork to build a unified theoretical framework allowing for generalizable results. To this end, we suggest the deployment of a rigorous neuroscientific approach, in search of neural markers of first language attrition in different linguistic domains, putting forward hypothetical experimental ways to identify attrition's neural traces and formulating predictions for each of the proposed experimental paradigms. JEL Classification: Z.

In this study, we explore the possible effect of linguistic attrition on consonant gemination among speakers of Italian living in Australia. We analyse a corpus of spontaneous speech for a group of native Italian speakers who emigrated to Melbourne in Australia between the 1950s and 1970s. Given gemination is a fully lexicalised and stable phenomenon in Italian but not in English, we investigate whether, after many years of living in Australia, the phonological contrast between singleton and geminate consonants in Italian is preserved, or undergoes phonetic shift due to longterm contact with English. An analysis of acoustic durations reveals that all participants produced a significant difference in singleton and geminate consonant length, albeit with variable lengthening ratios. A post-hoc qualitative analysis seems to point to shorter geminate durations for speakers who have lived longer in Australia, but this will need to be supported by further research.

Este artículo se ocupa de la erosión lingüística en profesores nativos de español que viven y trabajan en la República Checa. El objetivo es investigar la experiencia personal de estos profesores con un posible proceso de erosión. Para ello, en primer lugar, se presenta un marco teórico que repasa las investigaciones disponibles sobre erosión lingüística. En segundo lugar, se expone la metodología del estudio, basada en un cuestionario con preguntas sociodemográficas y experienciales en el que han participado 43 docentes de español de la República Checa, con el fin de compartir su proceso de desgaste lingüístico. En tercer lugar, se ofrecen y se discuten los resultados del análisis, con la conclusión de que la erosión lingüística es una parte inevitable del proceso migratorio que va unida a variables como la reducción del input en la L1 del hablante; el contacto con la lengua del país de acogida; el tiempo de residencia fuera del país de origen; así como la exposición continuada a los errores y a la interlengua de los aprendientes checos de español.

Background: This study examines the impact of bilingualism (English and Urdu) on language development, proficiency, and
use, focusing on linguistic, cognitive, and social aspects, providing a comprehensive understanding.
Methodology: This systematic review followed PRISMA guidelines and used reputable databases Scopus, PubMed and Google
Scholar to gather data. The study included peer-reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2023, focusing on language
development and structure in bilinguals speaking Urdu and English. The subjects were all ages, and studies excluded if they
included secondary illnesses or developmental disorders. The final articles were selected through expert discussions.
Findings: The study explores the impact of bilingualism on language development, focusing on morphological, syntactical,
morphosyntactical, reading, and verbal pronunciation. It finds that bilingualism can improve comprehension, word learning,
predictive skills, and metacognitive reading strategies. However, it can also lead to difficulties in phoneme learning and crosslinguistic interference. The study emphasizes the importance of equal exposure to both languages and educational plans that
encourage vocabulary growth. It suggests that bilingual students should develop special reading techniques to enhance
vocabulary acquisition.
Practical implication: The study suggests that bilingual education programs should promote balanced literacy practices in Urdu
and English, address linguistic issues, and support bilingualism and multiculturalism in schools. Teachers should be trained to
address lower order English comprehension difficulties, and caregivers should encourage bilingual children at home and
participate in cultural activities. Policies should encourage bilingual education and use multiple languages in schools, ensuring
bilingual Urdu-English speakers are productive academically, interpersonally, and culturally.
Conclusion: The systematic review highlights the positive impact of bilingualism on cognitive development, language
proficiency, and social skills, despite initial challenges like smaller vocabulary sizes. It emphasizes the importance of adequate
support for bilingual children.

The present study concerns first language attrition among Greek immigrants in Germany, focusing on the relation between social and attitudinal predictors of L1 attrition and some aspects of the participants’ proficiency in Greek and German. Our participants were 35 Greeks (20 female and 15 male) with an average age of 45.51 years (SD = 8.49) and an average length of residence in Germany 18.51 years (SD = 9.94). They had all left Greece after the age of 17 and lived in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg) for at least 7 years. They were administered three questionnaires: (a) a sociolinguistic questionnaire, (b) a motivational-attitude questionnaire and (c) a can-do scale, all translated and adapted in Greek from the respective tools which originated from Monica Schmid and adapted in other languages (see https://languageattrition.org/resources-forresearchers/). Last, the participants were also administered a cloze test and a reading comprehension test in Greek and German, both of C1 level of proficiency according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. All tests and questionnaires were administered online and monitored by the first author of this study, in Germany. We present and discuss preliminary results regarding the correlation between L1 Greek attrition as measured by our proficiency tests, and length of residence in Germany, amount of exposure to/use of L1 Greek and L2 German, as well as extralinguistic predictors such as age, sex, education level, attitudes and motivation.

Recent work has suggested that bilingual listeners use the visual identity of the talker to form expectations about the language the talker will use, which then facilitates lexical processing. In the current study, we extend this work to see if there are analogous effects of talker identity on dialect processing, and whether the impact of talker identity depends on the regional background of the listener. Six actresses recorded stimuli in two dialectal guises, performing Southern US accents and standardized, regionally nonspecific US accents. Participants were introduced to the actresses via video as having one particular dialect type (familiarization), and then later did an audio-visual lexical decision task (test) where some trials would be dialectally congruent and some trials would be dialectally incongruent with their earlier experience of that talker. US English listeners from both Southern and non-Southern dialect regions participated. Listeners who self-reported having (Sout...

This study examined how well phonetic similarity predicted ultimate attainment in the production of Danish /i, y, u/ and /d, t/ by highly experienced native speakers of English and of Spanish. Experiment 1 compared the VOT of /d, t/ and the F2 of /i, y, u/ as produced by native speakers of the three languages. Experiment 2 examined the perceptual assimilation of Danish [i, y, u] to native /i, u/ by native English and native Spanish listeners. Experiment 3 indicated that native English speakers used their native (non-Danish) /t/ and /u/ in Danish, and did not produce Danish /y/ correctly. Native Spanish speakers produced Danish /y/ correctly, and they produced /t/ and many /d/ tokens differently in Spanish and in Danish. These results are interpreted in terms of current speech learning models which claim that phonetic similarity predicts speech learning success at ultimate attainment.

A pesquisa em Atrito linguístico de L1 tem testemunhado um desenvolvimento desde os anos 80. No entanto, ainda são poucos os estudos acerca do português brasileiro (PB) e imigrantes brasileiros em comunidades de L2 dominante. Assim, partindo de uma visão da linguagem como um Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (CAS) (e.g., LARSEN-FREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008; BECKNER et al. 2009;. MERCER, 2013), este estudo investigou a produção das plosivas surdas do PB-L1 e do Standard Southern British English-L2 (SSBE) por imigrantes adultos do Sul do Brasil residentes em Londres, testando os efeitos dos primeiros dez anos (tempo de residência-LOR) na comunidade britânica. Usando um desenho transversal, este estudo explorou a produção de plosivas surdas em posição inicial de palavra de trinta e dois participantes, com idades entre 18-40: imigrantes brasileiros que viviam em Londres durante períodos de tempo variados (chegada no Reino Unido com idade > 18 anos), monolíngues do SSBE e monolíngues do BP. Os alvos do BP /p/, /t/ e /k/ foram apresentados na frase-veículo "Eu Diria _______". Os alvos para o SSBE foram apresentados na frase "I would say_______". Os alvos em posição inicial de palavra foram gravados aleatoriamente três vezes por cada participantes. Para a produção SSBE-L2, os resultados mostraram que falantes com um LOR entre zero e três anos diferem dos controles SSBE (p <0,05) para todas as três plosivas surdas inglês britânico. Imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos também diferem dos controles (p<0,05) para [p] e [t], mas não divergem para [k] (p>0,05). Aqueles que residem em Londres entre oito e onze anos não apresentaram diferenças em relação aos monolíngues do inglês britânico (p>0,05), e apresentaram os maiores valores médios de VOT. Em relação à produção do VOT para o PB-L1, a produção dos participantes com o menor período de tempo em Londres não era diferente da dos monolíngues do PB. Por outro lado, imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos produziram valores de VOT diferentes dos produzidos pelos controles para [t] e [k], apresentando valores médios mais elevados (p <0,001), mas não para a [p] (p>0,05). Finalmente, os imigrantes que eram residentes em Londres entre oito e onze anos revelaram diferenças em relação aos controles do PB, apresentando os maiores valores de VOT (p <0,001) para todos os sons plosivos considerados. Esses resultados fornecem evidência para o atrito linguístico de L1 enfrentado pelos falantes nativos do PB (shortlag VOT) imersos em uma comunidade de L2 dominante (long-lag VOT), bem como para o efeito de LOR, já que os valores de VOT tendem a aumentar em função do tempo de residência. Esses dados confirmam, como previsto por uma visão da linguagem como um CAS, que o sistema de L1 não é rígido e pode mudar durante o tempo de vida de um falante. Nossos resultados sugerem que as línguas naturais dependem de uma variedade de agentes, além de serem adaptativas e sujeitas a constantes mudanças.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir evidências de atrito linguístico do português (L1) em falantes bilíngues (português e inglês-L2) e trilíngues (português, inglês-L2 e alemão-L3). Investigamos, neste estudo, os diferentes padrões de produção de Voice Onset Time (VOT) das  plosivas surdas (bilabiais, alveolares e velares) em posição inicial de palavra nas línguas referidas. Os resultados encontrados sugerem a ocorrência de atrito linguístico mesmo em um ambiente onde a L2 ou a L3 não é dominante, além de trazerem evidências sobre a multidirecionalidade da transferência linguística e a importância da tipologia no desenvolvimento de línguas adicionais, de modo a ressaltar o seu caráter dinâmico.

One of the most pressing concerns in the area of L2 acquisition concerns the age at the onset of bilingualism/acquisition (AOA). Classical studies point to a negative correlation between AOA and accuracy and proficiency in the L2. However, recent experimental research has problematized this hypothesis. In this perspective, this work, result of research funded by CNPq, presents data on L2 development by immigrants in L2-dominant contexts that contradict the hypothesis that the success of L2 phonic development is conditioned by neurocognitive maturation. The data reveal that the variation in input is the most important variable in the prediction of success in L2 development. The potential of AOA as a predictor of foreign accent or success in L2 comes from its association with quantity and quality of input received by immigrants/learners.Una de las preocupaciones más comunes en el área de adquisición de L2 se refiere a la edad de inicio del bilingüismo / adquisición (AOA). Los estudios...

A pesquisa em Atrito Linguístico de L1 tem testemunhado um desenvolvimento desde os anos 80. No entanto, ainda são poucos os estudos acerca do português brasileiro (PB) e imigrantes brasileiros em comunidades de L2 dominante. Assim, partindo de uma visão da linguagem como um Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (CAS) (e.g., LARSEN-FREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008; BECKNER et al. 2009;. MERCER, 2013), este estudo investigou a produção das oclusivas surdas do PB-L1 e do Standard Southern British English-L2 (SSBE) por imigrantes adultos do Sul do Brasil residentes em Londres, testando os efeitos dos primeiros dez anos (tempo de residência-LOR) na comunidade britânica. Usando um desenho transversal, este estudo explorou a produção de oclusivas surdas em posição inicial de palavra de trinta e dois participantes, com idades entre 18-40: imigrantes brasileiros que viviam em Londres durante períodos de tempo variados (chegada no Reino Unido com idade > 18 anos), monolíngues do SSBE e monolíngues do BP. Os alvos do BP /p/, /t/ e /k/ foram apresentados na frase-veículo "Eu Diria _______". Os alvos para o SSBE foram apresentados na frase "I would say_______". Os alvos em posição inicial de palavra foram gravados aleatoriamente três vezes por cada participantes. Para a produção SSBE-L2, os resultados mostraram que falantes com um LOR entre zero e três anos diferem dos controles SSBE (p <0,05) para todas as três oclusivas surdas inglês britânico. Imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos também diferem dos controles (p<0,05) para [p] e [t], mas não divergem para [k] (p>0,05). Aqueles que residem em Londres entre oito e onze anos não apresentaram diferenças em relação aos monolíngues do inglês britânico (p>0,05), e apresentaram os maiores valores médios de VOT. Em relação à produção do VOT para o PB-L1, a produção dos participantes com o menor período de tempo em Londres não era diferente da dos monolíngues do PB. Por outro lado, imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos produziram valores de VOT diferentes dos produzidos pelos controles para [t] e [k], apresentando valores médios mais elevados (p <0,001), mas não para a [p] (p>0,05). Finalmente, os imigrantes que eram residentes em Londres entre oito e onze anos revelaram diferenças em relação aos controles do PB, apresentando os maiores valores de VOT (p <0,001) para todos os sons oclusivos considerados. Esses resultados fornecem evidência para o atrito linguístico de L1 enfrentado pelos falantes nativos do PB (shortlag VOT) imersos em uma comunidade de L2 dominante (long-lag VOT), bem como para o efeito de LOR, já que os valores de VOT tendem a aumentar em função do tempo de residência. Esses dados confirmam, como previsto por uma visão da linguagem como um CAS, que o sistema de L1 não é rígido e pode mudar durante o tempo de vida de um falante. Nossos resultados sugerem que as línguas naturais dependem de uma variedade de agentes, além de serem adaptativas e sujeitas a constantes mudanças.

Este trabalho busca aproximar a Teoria da Complexidade à área da Fonética Experimental aplicada ao desenvolvimento da fala da L2, na busca por evidências empíricas que potencialmente sustentem a posição complexa para a linguagem. Para tanto, explorou-se a produção de plosivas surdas em posição inicial de palavra de vinte e dois participantes, com idades entre 18-40 anos, por parte de imigrantes brasileiros que viviam em Londres por períodos de tempo variados, bem como por monolíngues do português brasileiro. A produção dos participantes do grupo-experimental com o menor período de tempo de residência (LOR) em Londres não era estatisticamente diferente da dos monolíngues do PB (p > 0,05). Por outro lado, imigrantes com um LOR entre quatro e sete anos produziram valores de VOT estatisticamente diferentes dos produzidos pelos controles do PB para [t] e [k], apresentando valores médios mais elevados (p < 0,001). Os residentes na Grã-Bretanha entre oito e onze anos revelaram diferenças em relação aos controles do PB, apresentando os maiores valores de VOT (p < 0,001) para todos os sons plosivos considerados. Esses dados confirmam, como previsto por uma visão da linguagem como um Sistema Adaptativo Complexo, que o sistema de L1 não é rígido e que pode apresentar alterações durante o tempo de vida de um falante. Esses resultados, assim, dão suporte à descrição da linguagem como um sistema aberto a novos estímulos e padrões.

The present study investigates the effectiveness of synthetic versus
natural stimuli for perception training on the ability of Brazilians to
identify the English vowels /æ-ɛ/. Fifty-six native Brazilians participated
in this study, and they were randomly divided into three groups: natural
stimuli, synthetic stimuli, and control groups (experimental groups). The
participants assigned to the experimental groups underwent perception
training sessions, with the natural group listening to recordings containing
vowels that did not have their duration altered, while the synthetic group
listened to recordings containing vowels that had their duration altered
to 350ms. Pre and post training perception tests were administered to
measure their progress. Results indicate that perception training with both
synthetic and natural stimuli is effective for the identification of /æ-ɛ/.
Keywords: vowel perception; high variability training; synthetic stimuli;
English.

Optional* *Flege, James. (in press). Language contact in bilingualism: Phonetic system interactions. In J. Cole & J.I. Hualde (Eds.), Laboratory Phonology 9. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. --An excellent review of the field of L2 acquisition. *Guion, S. G. (2003). The vowel systems of Quichua-Spanish bilinguals: Age of acquisition effects on the mutual influence of the first and second languages. Phonetica, 60, 98-128. --An excellent, and very readable overview of the L2 production literature. Includes empirical work as well. *Sundara, M., Polka, L. & Baum, S. (2006). Production of coronal stops by adult simultaneous bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9(1), 97-114. --The entire paper is probably heavy; but the discussion provides a good starting point to start thinking about similarities and differences between simultaneous bilinguals and L2 learners.

This study aims to identify the challenges encountered by pre-service teachers studying in the Arabic language teaching Program in developing their listening and speaking skills and to investigate whether there is a significant relationship between the challenges pre-service teachers encounter in their listening and speaking skills by using correlation analysis. It employs a mixed-method research design, using content analysis to identify challenges and correlation analysis to examine the relationship between the challenges faced in these two language skills. The qualitative findings indicate that preservice teachers encounter difficulties in various aspects, including vocabulary and semantics, the structure of language, emotional factors, and teaching methodologies. As for the quantitative analysis, a significant correlation is found between listening and speaking skills challenges, suggesting a reciprocal relationship between these skills. The study emphasizes the importance of addressing emotional barriers, effective teaching methodologies, and course materials to foster holistic language development. The study has implications for pre-service teacher education, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions and ongoing professional development for teacher educators to educate preservice teachers effectively. Additionally, suggestions for the Arabic Language Teaching curriculum are included.

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly interrupted the traditional education process and imposed the need to switch to online education. Children living in poverty without proper IT infrastructure have been substantially excluded from the educational pro- cess amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. During this challenging pandemic, education has been placed in quarantine. This research paper aims to qualitatively investigate the potential social exclusion and further marginalization within remote learning during the pandemic in a very particular local context, focusing on the areas of Bitola (North Macedonia) and Treviso (Italy).

/gl/ were weaker. Experiment 2 tested speakers of American English, which also disallows initial /tl, dl/ but realizes stop-voicing differently than French or Hebrew, to examine possible contributions of language-specific phonetic settings. Their performance was similar to that of French listeners, though they had significantly greater difficulty with /dl-/gl/. The results support the proposal of language-specific phonotactic perceptual assimilation, with modest contributions from language-specific phonetic settings.

This cross-sectional study of second language phonetic transfer of adult Brazilian-Portuguese speakers of English attempts to provide a description of the influence the achievement of native-like L2 VOT production exerts on the production of Brazilian-Portuguese unaspirated stop consonants / /, / / and / /. It also seeks a relationship between production and perception. Its theoretical basis lies in Flege's (1995) Speech Learning Model. The production experiment data was collected with 10 advanced users of English as L2. Samples were collected from each participant using two elicitation protocols: translation and sentence completion. Answers were given in the carrier sentence: " I would say _______". The stimuli consisted of three groups of nine words (all twosyllable words containing stress in the first syllable), each group with one voiceless stop / /, / / and / /, preceding the back vowels and-three tokens for each. Measurements of the VOTs of the speech samples were recorded and digitized in the Acoustics Laboratory of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, using the CSL/Computerized Speech Lab and were analyzed in the software Praat. In the perception experiment listeners heard 120 tokens of randomized and / syllables with VOTs that conformed to English and Brazilian-Portuguese values. They were instructed to identify the stops in the syllables as English / / or /. Results suggest the transfer of L2 VOT values to the native language and an a apparent link between production and perception. Nº de páginas: 58 Nº de palavras: 14.580

Hearing impaired persons face tremendous problems in communication such as lackingcertain experiences like music and natural sounds related to hearing.In view of this, the present study examines the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) by ESL hearing impaired adults. PAM is also the theoretical framework of this study. The research sample consists of sixty-six (66) participants that comprised male and female who are hearing impaired adults of Hausa native speakers of English and patients at the department of Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Kano State. The data were collated using a hearing test with the aid of speech audiometry which looks at how well a person listens to and repeats words after being presented with headphones The researcher watched the subjects very closely as they listened and repeated the spondee word. At the end of the test, a percentage of how many words were correctly perceived and repeated was derived and presented.The findings of this research reveal that, ashearing impaired ESL speakers acquire their native language, they use both auditory input to guide speech motor behavior and sensorimotor input to inform speech perception.

Zadovoljstvo učiteljev z učiteljskim poklicem je eden izmed pomembnih napovednikov učiteljeve uspešnosti. V prispevku nas zanima zadovoljstvo učiteljev s poklicem, še posebej v času velikih sprememb med pandemijo COVID-19 in po njej, ter kaj se iz tega lahko naučimo za prihodnost. Osredotočili smo se na stališča 110 osnovnošolskih in srednješolskih učiteljev, ki poučujejo v občinah obalno-kraške in pomurske statistične regije, kjer prebivajo pripadniki

When adults learn new languages, their speech often remains noticeably non-native even after years of exposure. These non-native variants ('accents') can have far-reaching socioeconomic consequences for learners. Many factors have been found to contribute to a learners' proficiency in the new language. Here we examine a factor that is outside of the control of the learner, linguistic similarities between the learner's native language (L1) and the new language (Ln). We analyze the (open access) speaking proficiencies of about 50,000 Ln learners of Dutch with 62 diverse L1s. We find that a learner's L1 accounts for 9-22% of the variance in Ln speaking proficiency. This corresponds to 28-69% of the variance explained by a model with controls for other factors known to affect language learning, such as education, age of acquisition and length of exposure. We also find that almost 80% of the effect of L1 can be explained by combining measures of phonological, morphological, and lexical similarity between the L1 and the Ln. These results highlight the constraints that a learner's native language imposes on language learning, and inform theories of L1-to-Ln transfer during Ln learning and use. As predicted by some proposals, we also find that L1-Ln phonological similarity is better captured when subcategorical properties (phonological features) are considered in the calculation of phonological similarities.

This study explored which cognitive processes are related to individual variability in the learning of novel phonemic contrasts in a second language. 25 English participants were trained to perceive a Korean stop voicing contrast which is novel for English speakers. They were also presented with a large battery of tests which investigated different aspects of their perceptual and cognitive abilities, as well as pre-and posttraining tests of their ability to discriminate this novel consonant contrast. The battery included: adaptive psychoacoustic tasks to determine frequency limens, a paired-association task looking at the ability to memorise the pairing of two items, a backward digit span task measuring working memory span, a sentence perception in noise task that quantifies the effect of top-down information as well as signal detection ability, a sorting task investigating the attentional filtering of the key acoustic features. The general measures that were the most often correlated with the ability to learn the novel phonetic contrast were measures of attentional switching (i.e. the ability to reallocate attention), the ability to sort stimuli according to a particular dimension, which is also somewhat linked to allocation of attention, frequency acuity and the ability to associate two unrelated events.

This study explored which cognitive processes are related to individual variability in the learning of novel phonemic contrasts in a second language. 25 English participants were trained to perceive a Korean stop voicing contrast which is novel for English ...

Aims: Research aims were (a) to test competing predictions regarding the levels of heritage and societal language proficiency among young adults who experienced early exposure to both languages, and (b) to identify sources of individual differences in degree of bilingualism. Design/methodology/approach: Participants comprised 65 Spanish–English bilinguals who reported using both languages on a weekly basis, 25 native English monolinguals, and 25 native Spanish monolinguals. Language and literacy skills were assessed with a battery of standardized and research-based assessments. Degree of bilingualism was calculated for the bilingual participants. Data and analysis: Paired sample t-tests compared the bilinguals’ skills in English to their skills in Spanish. Hierarchical regression evaluated factors related to their degree of bilingualism. Independent sample t-tests compared bilinguals’ single-language skills to monolinguals. Findings/conclusions: The bilinguals’ English skills were s...

Discrimination of vowel duration was explored with regard to JNDs, error bias, and effects of modality and consonant context. 90 normal-hearing participants discriminated either auditorily, visually, or audiovisually between pairs of stimuli differing with regard to duration of the vowel /a/. Duration differences varied in 24 steps: 12 with the first token longer and 12 with the second token longer (33-400 ms). Results: accuracy was lower for V than A and AV; step difference affected performance in all modalities; error bias was affected by modality and consonant context; and JNDs (> 50% correct) were not possible to establish.

In order to investigate listeners’ perceptual patterns regarding segments from an unfamiliar language, researchers commonly employ perceptual assimilation tasks. These tasks investigate the perceptual similarity of non-native sounds to L1 sounds, but do not provide information on the perceived similarity among non-native sounds. In order to examine how German vowels are perceived by naive American English listeners, both in their similarity to L1 vowels and to each other, this study employs a perceptual assimilation task and a free classification task, a tool previously used for investigating perceived (dis-)similarities of stimuli. The perceptual assimilation results largely replicate previous findings on American English assimilation of German vowels; however, the free classification results suggest that assimilation patterns are not reliable indicators of the German vowels’ perceptual similarity to each other. These results indicate that free classification offers an efficient me...

Traditionally, the non-standard German variety Upper Saxon is reported to have only lenis stops /b d g/ since the fortis stops /p t k/ were lenited to /b d g/ as a consequence of Central German Lenition. In standard German, fortis and lenis stops still have a contrastive function. Words like &lt;Kasse&gt; (cash register) and &lt;Gasse&gt; (alleyway) differ word-initially and are thus distinct in the standard variety, whereas they are homophones in the Upper Saxon region. In my dissertation, I suggest that Upper Saxon speakers have to acquire the standard German distinction, assuming that the contrast is not implemented in their native dialect (D1). As language processing has been found to be not just languagebut also dialect-specific, it has been suggested that speakers acquiring an unfamiliar variety of their native language (D2) are comparable to L2 learners acquiring typologically similar languages. However, systematic investigations into this claim are still lacking.

Standard German (SGer) maintains a contrast between lenis (voiceless unaspirated) stops and fortis (voiceless aspirated) stops. For the nonstandard German variety Upper Saxon (USax), traditional accounts report that only lenis stops are retained. Thus, (bass) and (passport) are a minimal pair in SGer but homophones in USax. However, recent phonetic investigations suggest that USax speakers produce fortis stops with aspiration. This study examines word-initial labials in USax speakers’ utterances. It also uses a discrimination task to explore if SGer and USax listeners can distinguish USax fortis from lenis stops. The analysis revealed that few USax speakers produced a clear fortis/lenis distinction. On the perceptual task, the SGer listeners perceived aspiration on fortis stops more reliably than the USax listeners. These results support traditional descriptions that claim aspiration is not phonemic in USax. They also indicate that USax speakers might be less accustomed to using thi...

Os fenômenos da aquisição fonético-fonológicos específicos a homens e mulheres são, relativamente, pouco explorados. Os estudos fazem, frequentemente, médias com os dados de produção fonética de homens e mulheres, com o fim de neutralizar o efeito das diferenças de sexo. Este estudo pretende investigar a aquisição da duração vocálica do inglês americano como produzida por falantes mulheres e homens falantes nativos de português brasileiro. Os resultados mostraram que as mulheres produzem vogais mais longas do que os homens tanto no grupo controle monolíngue quanto no grupo experimental bilíngue. As análises estatísticas indicam que os efeitos relativos às diferenças entre sexo e os efeitos relativos à aquisição de L2 não estão correlacionados. Tais resultados são interessantes para argumentamos em favor de que estudos em aquisição de L2 e fonética devem sempre considerar as diferenças de aquisição e performance entre os sexos, a fim de que importantes fenômenos específicos ao sexo n...

Foreign-accented speech of second language learners is often difficult to understand for native listeners of that language. Part of this difficulty has been hypothesized to be caused by increased within-category variability of non-native speech. However, until recently, there have been few direct tests for this hypothesis. The realization of vowels and word-final stops in productions of native-English L1 speakers and native-Mandarin speakers of L2 English is compared. With the largest sample size to date, it is shown that at least proficient non-native speakers exhibit little or no difference in category variability compared to native speakers. This is shown while correcting for the effects of phonetic context. The same non-native speakers show substantial deviations from native speech in the central tendencies (means) of categories, as well as in the correlations among cues they produce. This relativizes a common and a priori plausible assumption that competition between first and ...

This study combines acoustic phonetics with computational and applied corpus linguistics to analyze and compare the production of the monophthongal vowels /I/, /i:/, /U/, and /u:/ in the speech of 148 L1-Japanese learners (JPN) and 107 L1-speakers of English (ENS) based on The International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). The study aims to ascertain if JPN merge spectrally close vowels by calculating Bhattacharya coefficients. In addition, the study uses mixedeffects linear regression to determine if JPN compensate for the potential mergers by exaggerating durational contrasts between spectrally similar vowels. The results of the analysis confirm that JPN exhibit high degrees of overlap for both /I i:/ and /U u:/. Their L1-English peers, however, also exhibit substantive overlap for /U u:/. With respect to duration, the analysis shows that JPN extend the duration of all vowels and exaggerate the difference between /I i:/ and /U u:/ to compensate for the lack of qualitative differences between short and long vowel pairs. This study represents the first corpus-based acoustic analysis of JPN vowels in spontaneous speech.

Few electromagnetic articulography (EMA) datasets are publicly available, and none have focused systematically on non-native accented speech. We introduce a kinematic-acoustic database of speech from 40 (gender and dialect balanced) participants producing upper-Midwestern American English (AE) L1 or Mandarin Accented English (MAE) L2 (Beijing or Shanghai dialect base). The Marquette University EMA-MAE corpus will be released publicly to help advance research in areas such as pronunciation modeling, acoustic-articulatory inversion, L1-L2 comparisons, pronunciation error detection, and accent modification training. EMA data were collected at a 400 Hz sampling rate with synchronous audio using the NDI Wave System. Articulatory sensors were placed on the midsagittal lips, lower incisors, and tongue blade and dorsum, as well as on the lip corner and lateral tongue body. Sensors provide five degree-of-freedom measurements including three-dimensional sensor position and two-dimensional ori...

This paper reports on a comprehensive phonetic study of American classroom learners of Russian, investigating the influence of the second language (L2) on the first language (L1). Russian and English productions of 20 learners were compared to 18 English monolingual controls focusing on the acoustics of word-initial and word-final voicing. The results demonstrate that learners’ Russian was acoustically different from their English, with shorter voice onset times (VOTs) in [−voice] stops, longer prevoicing in [+voice] stops, more [−voice] stops with short lag VOTs and more [+voice] stops with prevoicing, indicating a degree of successful L2 pronunciation learning. Crucially, learners also demonstrated an L1 phonetic change compared to monolingual English speakers. Specifically, the VOT of learners’ initial English voiceless stops was shortened, indicating assimilation with Russian, while the frequency of prevoicing in learners’ English was decreased, indicating dissimilation with Rus...

This work was presented at the 2014 Meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in Orlando and funded by a research grant from the Wonkwang Digital University in 2014. Objectives: The present study examines whether Korean children and adults who have learned English as a second language (L2) produce Korean stops differently from Korean monolingual (KM) children with respect to voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) and whether the age of L2 exposure is a critical factor in determining the L2to-L1 influence. Methods: Eighteen Korean-English bilingual (KEB) children and adults and eighteen KM children produced nine monosyllables /p h ε, pε, p * ε, t h ε, tε, t * ε, k h ε, kε, k * ε/ twice in a row. A total of 1,890 tokens were acoustically analyzed with Praat to obtain VOT and F0 values and were subjected to statistical analysis for group comparison. Results: Two threeway ANOVAs and follow-up statistics revealed that the VOT values of aspirated and lenis stops were significantly longer in KEB children and adults than in KM children and that normalized F0 values of lenis stops were significantly higher in bilingual than in monolingual individuals. Nonetheless, no significant group difference was found between KEB children and adults. Conclusion: The acquisition of L2 English appears to disturb a tertiary contrast of Korean stops in terms of VOT and F0, in a way that bilingual individuals produc ed lenis stops more aspirated-like, with increased VOT and F0 values, and aspirated stops with increased VOT values. The L2-to-L1 influence may not be significantly different between early and late L2 learners, if their length of residence in a L2 speaking community is similar.

This study investigates the phonetic outcome of mixed-language speech in Bengali and Indian English, towards understanding cross-language interaction in highly proficient bilinguals. We compare spectral properties of L2 vowels [ae] (common to L1, L2) and [ʌ] (absent in L1) in code-switched (mixed) vs. nonswitched productions. Results reveal asymmetrical shifts in both vowels during mixed productions, towards related L1 categories. We interpret this as a temporary increase in cross-language phonetic interaction during mixed-language use, leading to a shift towards L1 norms, evidencing transfer effects on L2 vowels. We elicit mixed productions through two tasks: cued picture-naming and code-switching, to assess if experimental paradigm independently influences the behavior under study. Results reveal parallel patterns, but small magnitude differences, across paradigms. We discuss these findings in light of recent proposals about asymmetries in short-term phonetic interaction, postulated discursive factors in code-switching, and the issue of comparability between paradigms in transfer studies. 1. Introduction: Phonetic transfer Bi/multilingual speakers can distinguish between the phonetic norms of their languages and maintain separate sound categories for each language (