The Effect of Language Contact on /tʃ/ Deaffrication in Spanish from the US–Mexico Borderland

Abstract

This study examines the sociophonetic variation in the L1 speech of Spanish–English bilingual speakers living in the Ciudad Juárez, Mexico–El Paso, TX border metropolis. The purpose of this research is to analyze the sociolinguistic production of /ʧ/ deaffrication in U.S. Spanish, particularly, in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Based on the Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), it was hypothesized that L1 production of /ʧ/ deaffrication can be significantly affected by the establishment of a new L2 phonetic category /ʃ/ in bilinguals. Interviews with forty-four adult participants, including fourteen first generation simultaneous bilinguals, twelve sequential bilinguals, and eighteen monolingual Spanish speakers were acoustically and auditorily analyzed. Participants were recorded while they performed two types of tasks: a formal (reading) and two semi-informal speech production tasks. Results showed that simultaneous and sequential bilinguals had a significantly lower realization of [ʃ] than monolinguals, suggesting that L1 sociolinguistic variability is influenced by contact with English. Results also indicate the significance of the preceding segment on the realization of the variable under study in monolingual speech, with preceding /a, n, r, l/ favoring the variation and preceding /s, e, i, o, u/ disfavoring it. Comparisons of the variation in monolingual and bilingual speech show that the sociolinguistic factors (preceding segment, sex, and age) that influence the variation in monolingual controls do not influence the variation in bilingual speech.