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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1098

Part of Session 101: Sociophonetic research in emerging varieties (Other abstracts in this session)

Sociophonetic variation in a bilingual city

Authors: Spreafico, Lorenzo; Vietti, Alessandro
Submitted by: Spreafico, Lorenzo (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)

The main aim of our paper is to report on sociophonetic variation in Bozen-Bolzano, the chief city of the bilingual province of South Tyrol (Italy), and to relate it to processes of linguistic innovation there taking place. In order to do so we present an investigation of rhotics in bilingual speakers building on articulatory data collected through the Ultrasound Tongue Imaging techniqu. By means of this study we especially want to focus on recurring context-independent variation in tongue position and shape that in the peculiar language contact situation seems to trigger the front-to-back sound change (Engstrand, 2007).
Thus our research focuses on patterns of realization of /r/ amongst six adult simultaneous bilinguals who have been exposed to the two languages spoken in South-Tyrol -Italian and the Tyrolean Dialect- since their birth; and four late sequential bilinguals in the same two languages who become the control group.
We record three repetitions for each test word -namely real disyllabic words in isolation, which contain CRV sequences- and analyze them as follows: firstly the rhotic is identified on the base of the acoustics; secondly the tongue surface at the rhotic point in each token is traced; thirdly tongue shapes are compared and distances between tongue curves are computed. In particular we draw attention to tongue front retraction, dorsum bunching and postdorsum backing.
A preliminary analysis shows that as for late sequential bilinguals there is no strong categorical distinction between rhotics as articulated in the two languages (be it a dorsal or a coronal rhotic): Tongue position and shape almost coincide and present broadly comparable root, dorsum and tip contours. Therefore sequentials behave like second language learners and transfer the articulatory gesture of their dominant language to the other language. On the other hand simultaneous act in a completely different manner: The amount of variations in postdorsum backing and dorsum bunching in rhotics as articulated in the two language is significant, even when acoustic outcomes are comparable as in the case of fricatives.
Articulatory data on categorical differentiation in simultaneous bilingual like these help shading light on the initiation of sound change in bilingual communities and can be discussed on the base of Flege's Speech Learning Model (1995), who claims that age-related changes might affect the way the two languages` phonetic subsystems interact so that early bilinguals are more likely to establish new phonetic categories for each sound of the two languages than late bilinguals are -at least to the extent that the bilinguals perceive the two sounds as dissimilar. Besides they help to understand how and to what extent social identity might be indexed by means of r-sounds (Foulkes/Docherty, 2006).

Engstrand O. et al. (2007) A perceptual bridge between coronal and dorsal /r/, in Sole M. et al. (eds.) Experimental approaches to phonology, Oxford University Press: 175-191.
Flege J. (1995) Second language speech learning, in Strange W. (ed.) Speech perception and linguistic experience, York Press: 233–273.
Foulkes P./Docherty G. (2006) The social life of phonetics and phonology, Journal of Phonetics, 34: 409-438.