Voice onset time and global foreign accent in German–French simultaneous bilinguals during adulthood

Abstract

Aims and objectives:In this study, we investigated crosslinguistic influence in the phonetic systems of simultaneous bilinguals (2L1s) during adulthood. Methodology: Specifically, we analyzed the voice onset time (VOT) of the voiceless stop /k/ in the spontaneous speech of 14 German-French bilinguals who grew up in France or Germany. We looked at both languages, first comparing the groups, second comparing their VOT to their global accent. Data and analysis: The material consisted of interviews, lasting for about half an hour. Findings/conclusions: Most 2L1s showed distinct VOT-ranges in their two languages, even if they were perceived to have a foreign accent in the minority language of their childhood environment. We conclude that the phonetic systems of 2L1s remain separate and stable throughout the lifespan. However, the 2L1s from France had significantly shorter VOTs in German than the 2L1s from Germany, and their speech was overall more accented. These findings are discussed with respect to the role of intra-and extra-linguistic factors. Originality: Our study adds a new perspective to existing VOT studies of bilinguals by using naturalistic speech data and by comparing two groups of 2L1s who have the same language combination but grew up in different countries, which allows us to evaluate the impact of their childhood environment on VOT development. Significance/implications: Language exposure during childhood seems to be beneficial for pronunciation during adulthood.

First Language Attrition as a Function of Age at Onset of Bilingualism: First Language Attainment of Turkish–English Bilinguals in the United Kingdom

“…These advantages seem to be limited to phonological categories rather than structural ones and are evident in both perception, such as differentiation of minimal pairs (Hyltenstam, Bylund, Abrahamsson, & Park, ), and production, for instance, with respect to the production of voice onset time and accent rating (Au, Knightly, Jun, & Oh, ; but see Ventureyra, Pallier, & Yoo, , for null results). Despite these long‐lasting advantages over L2 learners, heritage speakers are usually perceived as sounding less nativelike in comparison to monolinguals (Kupisch et al., ), and the acoustic properties for some aspects of their speech (i.e., voice onset time in production of stops) are not always nativelike (Lein, Kupisch, & van de Weijer, ). With respect to voice onset time specifically, one likely cause of the changes in L1 values for this temporal characteristic of stop production has been suggested to be crosslinguistic influence, a process that might lead to the development of an accented L1 (Lein et al., ).…”

VOT in French as a foreign language: A production and perception study with mono- and multilingual learners (German/Mandarin-Chinese)

“…According to Duanmu (2000: 24f) In French, voicing lead with negative VOTs characterizes voiced stops /b d ɡ/, and short voicing lag (with VOT values defined as < 30ms) characterizes voiceless stops /p t k/. Lein et al (2016) summarize ten previous studies on French with voiceless plosives. For /t/, they report a range of VOTs between 18 and 35 ms, and for /k/ between 32 and 49, suggesting substantially lower values than those reported for German.…”

“…There exist three different types of VOT: distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables been made (cf. Lein et al 2016 for discussion). More recent studies suggest much higher VOTs.…”

The Effects of Home Language and Bilingualism on the Realization of Lexical Stress in Welsh and Welsh English

“…Most research examining the influence of extra-linguistic factors has focused on those who have acquired an L2 later in life while residing in an L2-speaking environment (see Colantoni et al, 2015, andPiske et al, 2001 for reviews) or on heritage language speakers (e.g., McCarthy et al, 2013McCarthy et al, , 2014Nagy, 2015;Lein et al, 2016;Mayr and Siddika, 2018), while the factors influencing speech production in simultaneous or early bilingual speakers residing in areas with long-standing societal or regional bilingualism have received far less research attention. The few available studies suggest that extra-linguistic factors may also influence phonetic variation among simultaneous or early bilingual speakers.…”