VOICE ONSET TIME IN MULTILINGUAL SPEAKERS: ITALIAN HERITAGE SPEAKERS IN GERMANY WITH L3 ENGLISH

Miriam Geiss,Anika Lloyd-Smith,Svenja Schmid,Sonja Gumbsheimer,Tanja Kupisch

doi:10.1017/s0272263121000280

Miriam Geiss, Anika Lloyd-Smith + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263121000280

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Abstract

AbstractThis study brings together two previously largely independent fields of multilingual language acquisition: heritage language and third language (L3) acquisition. We investigate the production of fortis and lenis stops in semi-naturalistic speech in the three languages of 20 heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with German as a majority language and English as L3. The study aims to identify the extent to which the HSs produce distinct values across all three languages, or whether crosslinguistic influence (CLI) occurs. To this end, we compare the HSs’ voice onset time (VOT) values with those of L2 English speakers from Italy and Germany. The language triad exhibits overlapping and distinct VOT realizations, making VOT a potentially vulnerable category. Results indicate CLI from German into Italian, although a systemic difference is maintained. When speaking English, the HSs show an advantage over the Italian L2 control group, with less prevoicing and longer fortis stops, indicating a specific bilingual advantage.

Highlights

In the assessment of crosslinguistic influence (CLI)1 in populations of multilingual speakers, most studies to date have concentrated on the effects of CLI in one language only
Findings on voice onset time (VOT) values reported in the literature differ due to several factors, such as place of articulation (PoA; Ladefoged & Maddieson, 1996), position of the stop in the syllable (Lisker & Abramson, 1964), type of data, vocalic contexts (Lein et al, 2016), and speech rate (Miller et al, 1986)
We set out to explore whether heritage bilinguals show evidence of two separate VOT patterns in their two languages, German and Italian, and whether there is CLI into L3 English

Summary

Introduction

In the assessment of crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in populations of multilingual speakers, most studies to date have concentrated on the effects of CLI in one language only. The call has been made to shift the focus from studies in which the target language is investigated in isolation from the other languages in a speaker’s repertoire, and toward studies that investigate the acquisition of the phenomenon of interest in all the speakers’ languages (Rothman et al, 2019). VOT is considered to be the most salient cue that differentiates the language-specific realizations of lenis (/b, d, ɡ/) and fortis (/p, t, k/) stops. It refers to the interval between the release of the stop and the beginning of vocal cord vibrations (Lisker & Abramson, 1964).

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