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SUMMARY:Seeking cross-linguistic interaction in the phonetic and phonologi
 cal development of bilingual French-speaking children - Dr Margaret Kehoe 
 (University of Geneva) 
DTSTART:20190221T163000Z
DTEND:20190221T180000Z
UID:TALK120112@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Julia Heine
DESCRIPTION:This study seeks evidence of cross-linguistic interaction acro
 ss different phonetic/phonological measures and age ranges of children. It
  focuses on syllable structure\, Voice Onset Time (VOT) and word prosody i
 n monolingual and bilingual French-speaking children\, aged 2\;6\, 3 to 4\
 , and 5 to 6 years. The bilingual children all speak French at crèche and
  at school but they have differing first languages (L1s) (e.g.\, Spanish\,
  Portuguese\, German\, and English). The bilingual’s L1s were coded in t
 erms of the complexity of phonological features and predictions were made 
 about the nature and direction of cross-linguistic interaction. In additio
 n\, the parents completed a questionnaire on their child’s language expe
 rience/dominance. In the case of the younger children\, parents also compl
 eted a vocabulary checklist whereas the older children were administered a
  French vocabulary test.\nSpecifically\, we examined whether bilingual chi
 ldren showed delay or acceleration in the acquisition of word-final codas 
 and onset clusters in comparison to monolinguals\; whether bilingual child
 ren produced target voiceless stops with longer VOTs and target voiced sto
 ps with less lead voicing than monolingual children\; and whether they exh
 ibited different duration ratios between final and initial syllables\, and
  increased presence of pitch accent on the initial syllable in their disyl
 labic word productions in comparison to monolinguals.\nResults showed evid
 ence of cross-linguistic interaction in syllable structure in the youngest
  children. Bilingual children whose L1 was characterized by high complexit
 y syllable structure obtained better scores than monolinguals and bilingua
 ls whose L1 was characterized by low complexity syllable structure. There 
 was no influence of L1 phonological complexity on L2 production in the old
 er children. Rather\, children who had higher scores on a French vocabular
 y test obtained the best results. There were no monolingual-bilingual diff
 erences in the use of short-lag voicing\, but bilinguals\, aged 3 to 6 yea
 rs\, produced fewer tokens with lead voicing. There was little influence o
 f bilingualism on word prosody. The duration ratios of final to initial sy
 llables were similar across monolingual and bilingual children and both gr
 oups of children realized a high pitch accent on the initial syllable to s
 imilar degrees. Overall\, cross-linguistic interaction was less present in
  the data than we had predicted. The relevance of these results for models
  of cross-linguistic interaction is discussed.
LOCATION:Gr-06/7 (English Faculty Building)
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