John Benjamins Publishing Company
Age effects and the discrimination of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in heritage and native Spanish
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Natalia Mazzaro
Abstract
This study explores the perception of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in two groups of Spanish-English bilingual speakers: heritage speakers and long-term immigrants. We test the discrimination of Spanish stops and mid and high vowels via an AX discrimination task with natural stimuli consisting of real Spanish words. Overall, results revealed no significant differences between heritage speakers and long-term immigrants in their discrimination of Spanish stops and vowels. Both groups were more accurate in their discrimination of vowels than of consonants. As for the discrimination of stops, positional and place effects were observed; i.e. a higher proportion of errors was found in word-initial position and with dorsals. We argue that contact with English does not necessarily affect the discrimination of the Spanish contrasts. Implications of these results for maturational approaches to final L2 attainment are discussed.
Abstract
This study explores the perception of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in two groups of Spanish-English bilingual speakers: heritage speakers and long-term immigrants. We test the discrimination of Spanish stops and mid and high vowels via an AX discrimination task with natural stimuli consisting of real Spanish words. Overall, results revealed no significant differences between heritage speakers and long-term immigrants in their discrimination of Spanish stops and vowels. Both groups were more accurate in their discrimination of vowels than of consonants. As for the discrimination of stops, positional and place effects were observed; i.e. a higher proportion of errors was found in word-initial position and with dorsals. We argue that contact with English does not necessarily affect the discrimination of the Spanish contrasts. Implications of these results for maturational approaches to final L2 attainment are discussed.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Root gerunds in Old Romanian 1
- Old French possessives and ellipsis 21
- The generalization of preposition para via fusion and ensuing loss of compositionality 39
- On capacities and their epistemic extensions 59
- Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches 79
- Epistemic adverbs, the prosody-syntax interface, and the theory of phases 99
- Romanian tough-constructions and multi-headed constituents 119
- Depictive secondary predicates in Spanish and the relative/absolute distinction 139
- Gender agreement with animate nouns in French 159
- French loanwords in Korean 177
- Affirmative polar replies in Brazilian Portuguese 195
- Participle fronting and clause structure in Old and Middle French 213
- “Toned-up” Spanish 233
- On null objects and ellipses in Brazilian Portuguese 257
- Age effects and the discrimination of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in heritage and native Spanish 277
- The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals 301
- The X 0 syntax of “dative” clitics and the make-up of clitic combinations in Gallo-Romance 321
- Some notes on falloir , devoir , and the theory of control 341
- The phonology of postverbal pronouns in Romance languages 361
- From N to particle 379
- Marsican deixis and the nature of indexical syntax 399
- Index 415
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Root gerunds in Old Romanian 1
- Old French possessives and ellipsis 21
- The generalization of preposition para via fusion and ensuing loss of compositionality 39
- On capacities and their epistemic extensions 59
- Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches 79
- Epistemic adverbs, the prosody-syntax interface, and the theory of phases 99
- Romanian tough-constructions and multi-headed constituents 119
- Depictive secondary predicates in Spanish and the relative/absolute distinction 139
- Gender agreement with animate nouns in French 159
- French loanwords in Korean 177
- Affirmative polar replies in Brazilian Portuguese 195
- Participle fronting and clause structure in Old and Middle French 213
- “Toned-up” Spanish 233
- On null objects and ellipses in Brazilian Portuguese 257
- Age effects and the discrimination of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in heritage and native Spanish 277
- The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals 301
- The X 0 syntax of “dative” clitics and the make-up of clitic combinations in Gallo-Romance 321
- Some notes on falloir , devoir , and the theory of control 341
- The phonology of postverbal pronouns in Romance languages 361
- From N to particle 379
- Marsican deixis and the nature of indexical syntax 399
- Index 415
