Interaction of Native- and Second-Language Vowel System(s) in Early and Late Bilinguals

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine how bilinguals' age at the time of language acquisition influenced the organization of their phonetic system(s). The productions of six English and five Korean vowels by English and Korean monolinguals were compared to the productions of the same vowels by early and late Korean-English bilinguals varying in amount of exposure to their second language. Results indicated that bilinguals' age profoundly influenced both the degree and the direction of the interaction between the phonetic systems of their native (L1) and second (L2) languages. In particular, early bilinguals manifested a bidirectional L1-L2 influence and produced distinct acoustic realizations of L1 and L2 vowels. Late bilinguals, however, showed evidence of a unidirectional influence of the L1 on the L2 and produced L2 vowels that were "colored" by acoustic properties of their L1. The degree and direction of L1-L2 influences in early and late bilinguals appeared to depend on the degree of acoustic similarity between L1 and L2 vowels and the length of their exposure to the L2. Overall, the findings underscored the complex nature of the restructuring of the L1-L2 phonetic system(s) in bilinguals.

L1 Korean vocalic transfer in adult L2 Korean learners’ production of Vietnamese monophthong vowels

“…Finally, the result of this study is consistent with that of Baker and Trofimovich (2005) who found that late bilinguals tended to rely mostly on their L1 sound category in the process of L2 production, however, in their study, early bilinguals seem to establish a new sound category for L2 contrasts distinct from their L1, which helps the early bilinguals perform more proficient L2 production. Although the late bilinguals in this study and in Baker and Trofimovich (2005)'s research have a certain amount of L2 experience, their L2 experience plays very little of a role in L2 acquisition.…”

“…Although the late bilinguals in this study and in Baker and Trofimovich (2005)'s research have a certain amount of L2 experience, their L2 experience plays very little of a role in L2 acquisition. This showed that L2 learners' age plays a substantial role in the relationship between L2 experience and a successful L2 acquisition.…”

“…The chosen Korean words were disyllabic because it was impossible to find monosyllabic Korean words that had the same characteristics as the Vietnamese stimuli. Nevertheless, this difference in syllable length across the word sets in the two languages was not seen to be a limitation in comparing vowel quality in Vietnamese and Korean (see Yang 1996 andTrofimovich 2005 for an example of English and Korean vowel comparisons using monosyllabic English and disyllabic Korean word stimuli).…”

“…The effects of L1 phonological learning on vowel perception were also observed in the tendency of the Japanese, but not the Korean listeners, to normalize tokens of non-native vowels for speaker-dependent durational variation, consistent with the respective phonological roles of vowel length in Japanese and Korean. In another study, Baker and Trofimovich (2005) examined /i, ɪ, u, ʊ, e, ɛ/ English vowel productions by Korean-English bilinguals and the Korean and English monolinguals. The vowel production of Korean-English bilinguals was then compared with each of the Korean and English monolinguals' vowel production.…”

“…It seems that late bilinguals tended to rely mostly on their L1 sound category in the process of L2 production, however, early bilinguals seem to establish a new sound category for L2 contrasts distinct from their L1, which helps the early bilinguals perform more proficient L2 production. Based on their findings, Baker and Trofimovich (2005) came to a conclusion that the amount of L2 experience influences the L1 and L2 relationship and its influence between L1 and L2 is observed more prominently among early bilinguals than late bilinguals. Although the late bilinguals have a certain amount of L2 experience, their L2 experience plays very little of a role in L2 acquisition.…”