Socio-indexical phonetic features in the heritage language context: Voiceless stop aspiration in the Calabrian community in Toronto

Nodari, Rosalba; Celata, Chiara; Nagy, Naomi

doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2018.12.005

Cited by 21 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…In spite of widely held beliefs within minority language communities that heritage speakers speak a simplified or defective version of their languages, and experimental results (as reviewed in Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky, ) supporting that view, in our research we find only a few types and a few instances of systematic distinction between heritage and homeland varieties in spontaneous speech, replicating reports of heritage varieties as full languages from Flores, Rinke, and Azevedo (), Nagy (), and Nodari, Celata, and Nagy (). Overall, the grammatical systems in these heritage varieties are robust—there is little sign of change from the homeland varieties.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Case Marking Variation in Heritage Slavic Languages in Toronto: Not So Different

Lyskawa

Nagy

2019

Language Learning

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We examined case‐marking variation in heritage Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. Comparing heritage to homeland Polish and Ukrainian speakers, we found only a few types and a few tokens of systematic distinction between heritage and homeland varieties. A total of 6,291 instances of nouns and pronouns were extracted from transcribed conversations with 62 speakers. Comparing normative forms to observed forms in logistic regression analyses showed that the form of the nominal and the case selector have significant effects on the rate of match between normative and observed forms, while declension does not. Most mismatches in the heritage data were replaced by the nominative, a pattern which is also occasionally found in homeland speech. The second most frequent pattern is genitive–accusative mismatch in specific contexts, in both heritage and homeland speech. Importantly, no significant differences between homeland and heritage speakers emerged, with 8% mismatch attested in the heritage and 2% in homeland data.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Case Marking Variation in Heritage Slavic Languages in Toronto: Not So Different

Lyskawa

Nagy

2019

Language Learning

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“…While such early exposure places heritage speakers at an advantage over late L2 learners, this acquisition trajectory, coupled with L2 dominance, also makes heritage speakers incomparable to native speakers who are more dominant in the L1 (Chang et al, 2011;Godson, 2004;Kan, 2020;Saadah, 2011). Although sounds may be shared by the L1 and L2 (e.g., Chang et al, 2011;Kang and Nagy, 2016;Nodari et al, 2019;Ronquest, 2012;Saadah, 2011), in some cases, there may be features of the heritage language that the L2 simply does not possess. While establishing separate categories for sounds shared across languages may be difficult, there may also be difficulty maintaining phonetic and linguistic dimensions that are utilized in one language but not the other.…”

Section: Phonetic and Lexical Encoding Of Tone In Cantonese Heritage Speakers 1 Heritage Speaker Phonologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonetic and lexical encoding of tone in Cantonese heritage speakers

Soo¹,

Monahan²

2021

Preprint

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Heritage speakers contend with at least two languages: the less dominant L1 (heritage language), and the more dominant L2. Maintaining the heritage language allows heritage speakers to communicate with members of their community. In some cases, their L1 and L2 bear striking phonological differences. In the current study, we investigate this in the context of Toronto-born Cantonese heritage speakers and their maintenance of Cantonese lexical tone, a linguistic feature that is absent from English, the more dominant L2. Across two experiments, Cantonese heritage speakers were tested on their phonetic/phonological and lexical encoding of tone in Cantonese. Experiment 1 was an AX discrimination task with varying inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs), which revealed that heritage speakers discriminated tone pairs with distinct pitch contours better than those with shared contours. Experiment 2 was a medium-term repetition priming experiment, designed to extend the findings of Experiment 1 by examining tone representations at the lexical level. We observed a positive correlation between tone minimal pair priming and English dominance. Thus, while increased English dominance does not affect heritage speakers' phonological-level representations, tasks that require lexical access suggest that heritage Cantonese speakers may not robustly and fully distinctively encode Cantonese tone in lexical memory.

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“…However, in other areas they show variability that is different from monolingual norms (Alvord & Rogers, 2014; Amengual, 2016; Colantoni et al, 2016; Godson, 2004; Henriksen, 2015; Robles-Puente, 2014; Ronquest, 2012, 2013). Studies have found that heritage language vowel space either shows assimilation to or dissimilation from that of the majority language (Cummings Ruiz, 2019; Ronquest, 2012, 2013) and that heritage language stop productions are affected by factors such as cognate status (Amengual, 2012), code-switching (Łyskawa, Maddeaux, Melara & Nagy, 2016), and speaker generation (Mayr & Siddika, 2018; Nodari, Celata & Nagy, 2019). Some phonological properties may also show both variability and stability.…”

Section: Understanding Heritage Phonological Grammarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The missing link in Spanish heritage trill production

Repiso-Puigdelliura

Kim

2020

Bilingualism

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While heritage language phonology has attracted a great deal of attention, little is known about the development of heritage phonological grammars. This study examines the production of the Spanish trill /r/ by school-aged (9-10 years) and adult heritage speakers. Results showed that the adult heritage speakers produced the trill in a more target-like manner than the child heritage speakers, although half of them diverged from non-heritage native baselines reported in other studies. Further analysis of the distribution of trill variants suggests that heritage Spanish trill development occurs in the order of single lingual constriction → frication → multiple lingual constrictions. However, instead of abandoning variants of early stages, some adult heritage speakers kept them in their trill inventories, demonstrating increased variability. Our findings indicate that 9- to 10-year-old heritage speakers are still in the process of developing heritage phonological grammars and even during adulthood their grammars may not reach stability.

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Socio-indexical phonetic features in the heritage language context: Voiceless stop aspiration in the Calabrian community in Toronto

Cited by 21 publications

References 71 publications

Case Marking Variation in Heritage Slavic Languages in Toronto: Not So Different

Case Marking Variation in Heritage Slavic Languages in Toronto: Not So Different

Phonetic and lexical encoding of tone in Cantonese heritage speakers

The missing link in Spanish heritage trill production

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