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ED 324 909 FL 018 868

AUTHOR Martinez-Dauden, Gemma; Llisterri, Joaquim

TITLE Phonetic Interference in Bilingual Speakers Learninga Third Language: The Production of LateralConsonants.

PUB DATE Apr 90NOTE 13p.; Paper presented at the Meeting of the World

Congress of Applied Linguistics sponsored by theInternational Association of Applied Linguistics(9th, Thessaloniki, Greece, April 15-21, 1990).

PUB TYPE Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Articulation (Speech); Bilingualism; College

Students; Comparative Analysis; *Consonants; ForeignCountries; French; Higher Education; *Interference(Language); Language Research; Language Styles;Linguistic Theory; Males; *Multilingualism;*Phonetics; Questionnaires; Second Language Learning;Spanish; Uncommonly Taught Languages; Young Adults

IDENTIFIERS *Catalan; *Spain kCatalonia)

ABSTRACTA study examined the production of lateral consonants

in seven male university students bilingual in Spanish and Catalanwho had studied French in elementary and secondary school. Aquestionnaire elicited information about the subjects' use of eachlanguage with parents, with friends, at home, and in school. Eachsubject then read a 775-word text in French. Acoustical analysis ofthe recorded speech revealed the incidence of velarized (typical ofCatalan) and non-velarized (typical of Spanish and French) lateralconsonants. Results indicate that the production of lateralconsonants in French tended to be the non-velarized variety found inFrench ana Spanish. However, comparison of these results with thoseof other studies suggests that the context in which Spanish andCatalan are learned may be an important factor in phonetic transferor interference. (MSE)

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1. INTRODUCTION

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1.1. BILINGUALISM

The study has been carried out in CabothCitalincand Spaniiirare,SPankth -briarusuidirfroskindlilduslitnsituetionlind -pewLiburetorr tisk,porteriteice 1 bSpanilit ) subPock1987 a, b ). eaterspeakers. with Catalan as their filth?. hubn stUdied- by anuliber of researchers.

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12. LATIMALS

In en early work comparIntlateral consonants, Navarro (1917), establishedthe cactsr Csta1anW In front -OVtile tvoIa --'-4040t, of

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1 Submitted to the 9th World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Thessaloniki,Greece, Apr1112-21, 1990.

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alveolar non velarized ) lateral, Catal=1 - as English in certaii positions -shows a "dark" ( i.e. velarized ) allophone of this consonant.

Laterals are produced with resonance in the vocal tract, and therefore theyexhibit formants In their acoustic spectrum. Lingual retraction can beindirectly measured looking at the frequency of the second format ( It2as has been remarked by Delattre : there is a direct relation betweenback-and-up and format two frequency lowering ( Delattre, 1951:232 ),following Fant's acoustic theory of speech production. A low second formantfrequency denotes then a high degree of tongue backing together with anelevation of the posterior part of the tongue towards the velum.

1 SPEAKERS

2.1. SELECTION

We have asked a fairly large group of first year students attending lectures011 General Linguistics at the University tO IMMOT a questionnaire aimed atdetermining their use of Catalan and Spanish; information about the timeand places where they studied French was also requested.

The questionnaire addressed four skills: listening, speging, reading andwriting both in Spanish and Catalan; the subjects had to answer with apercentage of use of each language In a series of specific envirenments orsituations ( i.e. at home, at the university, at work, during their period ofleisure ... ) This gives an estimate of their activities for each ci the fourskills. There are also questions about geographical origin - both of thesubject and the parents and about the language spoken with the differentmembers of the family.

21. DESCRIPTION

Seven male speakers, 'Iniversity students at the Universitet Auttinoma deBarcelona, between 18 and 26 years old were selected. They have studiedFrench at primary and secondary school during 6-7 years, approximately 3hours a week using similar pedagogical materials.

According to their linguistic background, they may be described as in table. Note that all of them have some knowledge of Catalan - taught at

primary and secondary school for those who have Spanish as L 1 SinceSpanish is taug:it as the cifieial language al the whole country, OS meanslack of use, but not lack of knowledge. The speakers appear in the tablebelow ordered from mainly Spanish speakers to mainly Catalan speakers.

SPEAKER LANGUAGE SPOKEN WITH LANGUAGE SPOKENATFATHER MOTHER FRIENDS HOME UNIVERS

FJO._.....2....1..avan=i 0 .........1...16,om=vu 0.......1.11...

011111111511AA eit7V 1O Os

S i 1. sh_Spanish10%.

Catalan40%Catalan

FC Spanish Spanish MoreSpinishthanCatalan

100%SPinish

80tSpanish

0% Catalan 20%Catalan

FH anish Spanish Catalan 90%S &nigh

30%Spanish

10%

Catalan70%Catalan

JSA S anish Catalan Catalan 80% 111ASpanish Spanish20% 20%Catalan Catalan

AP Spanish Spanish Catalan 80% 10%Spanieh_Szanish

20% 80%Catalan Catalan

jT Catalan Catalan Catalan 0% Spanish 30%Spanish70%Catalan

100%Catalan

JS Catalan Catalan Catalan 0% Spanish 0% Spanish,100%Catalan

100%Catalan

Table I: Linguistic background of the speakers selected for the experiment

3. CORPUS

3.1. TUT

These seven speakers were asked to read a text in French. It consisted of atwo page fragment containing around 775 words; it was randomly selectedfrom a contemporary novel published in 1987. Nevertheless, the number ofoccurrences of lateral consonants was checked and there was some minorediting to compensate for less represented contexts.

Anyway, for the final analysis only sequences of Vowel- lateral- Vowel /e/were selected. This gives an average ot about 30 cases of lateral consonants

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in this particular context for each speaker; then, the total number ofconsonants analyzed was about 200.

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The speakers were recorded in a sound isolated booth at the PhoneticsLaboratory at the Universitet AutOnoma de Barcelona. They were givensome time to read the text beforehand and its general meaning wasexplained to them; questions about specific points were also answered.

They were asked to read the text at their normal rate and they wereallowed to repeat paragraphs when in trouble.

A Sennheiser MD 441N directional cardioid microphone and a Revox A77high quality tape recorder were used.

4. ACOUSTP, ANALYSIS

The acoustic analysis of the utterances was made with the Mac Speech Lab

IIT software package by GW Instruments, Inc., running on an Apple

Macintosh SE/30Th.

4_1. SEGMENTATION

The audio wave was segmented, locating the boundaries of the lateralconsonant. Two criteria have been followed(a) changes In amplitude in the waveform; this can be observed at differenttime scales for accuracy when delimiting the boundaries betweenseg ments.(b) perceptual checking by listening to the segmented utterance.By combining these two criteria, very short utterances of the lateralconsonant may also be analyzed without great difficulties.

4.2. FREQUENCY ANALYSIS

In order to locate the frequency of the second formant - taken as theacoustic correlate of velarization -, we have used the LPC algorithmavailable in the software described. Given a sampling rate of 10Khz a 13pole model was used in the analysis. A preemphasis of 6dB was alsoapplied. This gives an accurate representation of the response curve of thevocal tract at the selected point; for manta are shown as the most prominentpeaks in the LPC spectrum.

4.3. RESULTS

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4.3.1. MAN VAL= OF F2 FOR UCH SPBAUR IN FRENCH

Tka kiataarata Ar the mean value At Frerwth m iinsr emit spoiskor Fture1 ) shows that our subjects tihavc in a ilillir Manner; the range ofvariation is between 1500Hz and 1675 Hz: Only yr and pA presentstatistically significant differences With the rest'of the speakers.

31' FJO PH AP IS FC

Figure 1: French n mean value for each speaker

4.3.2. cowrar DEPINDINCY

Bladon and Carbonaro (1978: 52 ) have stated that simple alveolarundergoes substantial variation in quality due to the preceding vowel (...)the quality of all cues of Italian alveolar DI varies considerably inaccordance with that of the neighboring vowel, and these effects I arefound] with essentially equal strength from both direct:3ns i.e. from afollowing and a preceding vowel . This dependency from the vowelpreceding the lateral is also shown for the French lateral production of eachspeaker in Figure 2: F2 frequency diminishes from Oki to IuleI, as expected.

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1400

1700

1600

1500

14001.1.1 1.1.3 luki

Figure 2: French F2 mean value far each speaker and context,

5. DISCUSSION

5.1. COMPAIUION W1i spiagsk,, CATALAN AND PINOICILATRIALSINODUCID.Dir NATIvIsPlutus

The comparison of Fret:h prodOtionmeasurements Of natIve Sp** ( :1979 ); native Catalett+Panyella,49.8V1980 ) in VIV environment:0*s that:the&kik fat awar frOMnative French *shies; but thayFigure-3 ). Ittelch 1at.ra1s Occ017,value oI 1656 1144likresults Wow-the- native French:on-WU* different.,

in our subjects with F2ue, GOO- Z: °Ad cart",

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velar cbiirarter,Of 'COM& ill is shown In the low F2:frog-Wing u- inipcisedto Spanish and Frach.

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Figur* 4: alma: itcompared to native Fritchilliiiiike00141sian

These results may be interpreted is an experitnent,OFIthr. ,altiell,4 thefact that our group of sublects is attheacotiitIc tealSpan!sh lateral consonant - that is, a tiOn

- to their spoken French. Another possjbI.n$mfpistItlun:

they are correctly using the, FrenCh?Veriety,assume if their "French accent" is contidereitthe otord,Ovveiycleartyshow the typical features of Spanish end Catalan ,people ipeaking Frenchand their overall perforMance doesn't sound native at all.

lf we go back to the table describing the speakers ( Table I ), this would be

a totally predictable rczult for FJ4 and- FC: both, :use, Spanish' almostexclusively at home and predorinantlYsiteak thislaiguage*itiio. As forFII and JSA, they do not seemsto be- st'close to ths.sponsisors ,at theother speakers ( it liss 'beekatited hat After-ewes between '.'titedi F2 inFrench and the averagel2 In Spenilkate Ustiat their patterns a -langtdiqt die they may be considered qilte balidicedbilinguals. However, Jr and *OW this liätàñe do not show anyinfluence a trinster fromtratalin in their French lateens.

An explanation has to be found for this rather unexpected behavior. In ouropinion, this could be due to two faders:

(a) the language environment in which learning of French took place. Thismay explain the case of yr that learned French in a secondary schoollocated in a predominantly Spanish speaking area near Barcelona

9

characterized by a strong presence of Spanish speaking immigrants. - notethat he speaks Spanish.with friends - ; it has to be remarked that - withfew exceptions - Spanish has been the medium of insunctjon -in foreignlanguage teaching in Catalonia; It is still used in areas where Spanish is themost used language. This could also influence the performance of speakersJSA and AP.

(b) fluency in French. Although all the subjects have studied French duringthe same period and in very similar conditions, listening to the recordingsshows that JS is the most fluent of all; he has been taught in French duringFrench lessons and he wu able to read the text without noticeabledifficulties. This may be a factor that explains the lack of velarization in hislateral productions.

4.2. COMPARISON WITH HILINGUALS° PIIRPORMANCE IN SPANISH

It may be ueeful to compare the results ci the present study concerningFrench, with data obtained in a previous research by Martinez (1989),Iluerto et al. (1988) and Comas (1986) which are also related to thebehavior of bilingual speakers regarding the velarization of the lateralconsonant. Rata are summarized in Figure 5.

Martinez (1989) - first column labelled Sp L2 c - studied the realization ofSpanish laterals by a group of 8 Spanish-Catalan bilingual male subjectsreading a newspaper text; they were speakers of the Barcelona variety ofCatalan, and for this reason her results are compared to thaws found fornative Catalan by Panyella (1985) - second column labelled Cat LI - whoalso studied this variety. The results are quite conclusive and show thetraneer of the velar character of Catalan Ill into Spanish when reading aconnected text.

Another series of studies was concerned with the variety of Catalan spokenin Girona, which is assumed to be ctaracterized - among other things - by astronger velar resonance in the latoral consonant. Comas (1986) comparedF2 values for the same bilingual subjects, reading words embedded incarrier sentences in Catalan - first column labelled Cat LI - and in Spanish- Sp L2 w - ; the results show a clear tendency to velarize the Spanishlateral. Huerto et al. (1988) studied a group of speakers of the samegeographical origin and language background reading a connected textsecond column labelled Sp L2 c - ; higher values are observed, but they alsoare far below the native Spanish frequency values - Sp Ll .

0

250

Cat Lege tarvi LIVE,

Figure 5: flflliiIiiàEkirs(wevords, reconnected *kb)

The study of these results, leads us to conclude that we are death*. withtwo different groups of subject& Although they are usually refe0eCto. as"bilinguals", it is difficult to assume a good command of-',the4eature"velarization" in the speakers studied by- Martlnek(1989) , BuortOlkaL(1988) vid Comas (1986 ). But the eight spiikeri ChoWn for thil studyseem to have a better command of this feature, al least when speaking athird language.

5. CONCLUSION

The results obtained with our group of speakers reading a French text showthat their production the lateral consonant spproaches the "clear" varietythat is found in !Trench and Spanish. *mover, one important lector. ofsociolinguistic nature has to be takes IMO account when assessing theperformance of a bilingual in a third language,. i.e. the linguisticenvironment in whift the acquisition of L3 has taken plue.

The comparison with the production at the lateral consonant in Spanish bya different group of bilingual speakers leads us to think that thisdenomination lay refer to several linguistic backgrounds, ranging fromindividuals with a, good command -of the production of certain 4phoneticfeatures -.such as velarization - to individuals whosre just transfering thetrticulatory.gestures of their first linguae to their setond one. "Bilingual", at least when referring to the phonetic abilities of individuals in a

1.1

community were two languages are spoken, may be a d Isignation thatembodies different degrees of speech production control.

REFEnticss

BLADON, A.- CARBONARO, a (1978) Lateral consonants in Italian", Journalol LInguIslIa3,1: 43-54.

CHAFCOULOFF, M. (1980)"Les caractéristiques acoustiques de /j, y,w,l,r / enfranca's", Demur de llinlitut *PltonOtique dAir 7: 7-56

COMAS, M.T. (1986) Carsaeritzsae 'Ws*, de resffIzeckes * sopsrlsots bilthgOes Walt - esstellt Unpublished Dissertation. Departamentde Filologia Catalan, Facultat de Lletres, Universitet Autonoma deBarcelona.

DELATTRB, P. (1951) "The physiological interpretation of soundspectrograms", Publialisrms of the Modern Lsormres Association 66: 864-875; in DELATTRE, P. (1966) Studies in Avocet and Comparative PhoneticsThe Hague: Mouton. pp. 225-235.

HUERTOS, F.- SABIO, 11.-SILVESTRE, B.- SORIA,J. (1988) auwaerirmido'aka:, de /I/ ma'am& en cslarao-hableates * Germs en Ash&continua Unpublished paper. Laboratori de Fonetica, UAB.

LLISTERRI, J.- PC111, D. (1987a) Les realisations sonores dansl'apprentissage d'une troisième langue par des bilingues ", Revue *Plionelique Appliqude 82-83-84: 209-i20.

LLISTERRI, J.- POCH, D. (1987b) Phonetic interference in bilinguals'learning of a third language ", Prxeedioss of 16e 271b InlernstiooslCcogress Phonetic &Max.% Tallinn, Estonia, USSR vol 5: 134-137.

MARTINEZ, G. (1989) Caracterizacien acestica de la consonante lateralalveolar en un corpus de habla continua realizado por hablantes bilingoes",Paper submitted to the XVIII Simposio de Is Sodedsd &pedals deLiogilisfieg Madrid.

NAVARRO, T. (1917) Sobre la articulacien de la /1/ castellana inBARNILS, P. (Ed) iamb* s Fonetics . Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans. pp.265-275.

PANYELLA, R.. (1985) Delermthave experiments/ del awleil deVelsr112106" de /II de/ cslth s par& de Is Ikeepiocis *Is fres fermsolssalsfics. Unpublished paper. Laboratori de Fonetica, UAB.

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Appendix 16

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Date Filmed

March 29, 1991