Abstract as per original application
(English/Chinese): |
A core issue in bilingualism research is the interaction of two languages in the bilingual mind. An important venue for this investigation is phonetics and phonology: bilinguals are known to perceive and produce speech sounds differently from monolinguals, in both the first language (L1) and the second language (L2), due to influence from the other language. Previous research has gathered a wide range of empirical data regarding bilinguals’ acquisition of consonants, vowels, tones, and intonations. In this project, we extend this line of research to an understudied area of potential crosslinguistic influence, that is, the perception of sociophonetic variation. We ask whether socio-indexical meanings of speech sounds in one language can be carried over to another language. In doing so, we will join two well-established areas of study, i.e. bilingual speech processing and sociolinguistic variation, and open new frontiers for both.
We focus on the indexical meanings of nonmodal voice qualities (creaky voice, breathy voice) in American English and Mandarin Chinese. While both languages are commonly produced with (non-phonemic) voice quality variations, they exemplify interesting disparities in the socio-indexical implications of such variations. For example, creaky voice (i.e. “vocal fry”) has highly gendered perceptions (“masculine”/“authoritative” for male speakers and “bored/less competent/professional/chilled” for female speakers) in North American English, but not in Mandarin.
We compare three groups of bilingual listeners, including two groups of typical L2 learners (English-L1/Mandarin-L2, Mandarin-L1/English-L2) and one group of heritage speakers (heritage Mandarin speakers in the U.S.). Unlike L2 learners, heritage speakers have received naturalistic input in both languages and are most likely to develop language-specific ideologies (which are hence resistant to crosslinguistic transfer).
The main task is a social perception experiment using a matched guise technique. Critical stimuli will be trios of English/Mandarin utterances resynthesized with different voice qualities (modal, creaky, breathy), based on natural productions of a large sample of native speakers. We hypothesize that listeners’ social evaluations of the speaker would vary with voice quality, target language, and furthermore, listener’s language background. Specifically, we predict the direction and likelihood of transferring sociophonetic knowledge across languages to be conditioned by the listener’s proficiency and experience with both languages.
Results from this project will be discussed in the frameworks of the exemplar theory and models of bilingual lexicon. In addition to theoretical advancement, the findings will also produce far-reaching impacts for our understanding of the development of language-related ideologies.
雙語研究中的一個核心問題就是兩個語言如何在雙語者的語言系統中互動，特別是在發音方面。前人的研究已經发掘了許多關於第一語言與第二語言如何在語音方面互相影響的證據。在這個研究項目中，我們將討論語音所携帶的社會文化意義是否也會在第一語言和第二語言之間遷移。我們考察的對象是非常規的一些發聲態（例如嘎裂聲、氣聲等）在美式英語和漢語普通話裏的社會文化意義。雖然這些發聲態在這兩個語言中都常常出現，它們所携帶的社會文化意義卻隨著語言變化。譬如說，嘎裂聲在北美英語裏可以表現男性説話者的權威，如果女性説話者的發音帶有嘎裂聲則會被認爲是不專業或者不夠有活力的特徵。在普通話裏，嘎裂聲似乎沒有這樣的社會文化意義。我們將比較幾組不同語言背景的中英雙語者對於嘎裂聲和氣聲在不同語言中的文化意義的感知。這項研究的結果將會幫助我們瞭解雙語者是如何習得兩個語言各自所蘊含的文化意義的。
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