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Vowel development in an emergent Mandarin-English bilingual child: a longitudinal study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

JING YANG ,
ROBERT A. FOX  and
EWA JACEWICZ
JING YANG*
Affiliation:
Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, USA Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Central Arkansas, USA
ROBERT A. FOX
Affiliation:
Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, USA
EWA JACEWICZ
Affiliation:
Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, USA
*
Address for Correspondence: Jing Yang, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Central Arkansas, 201Donaghey Ave, UCA Box 4985, Conway, AR 72035. e-mail: jyang@uca.edu
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Abstract

This longitudinal case study documents the emergence of bilingualism in a young monolingual Mandarin boy on the basis of an acoustic analysis of his vowel productions recorded via a picture-naming task over 20 months following his enrollment in an all-English (L2) preschool at the age of 3;7. The study examined (1) his initial L2 vowel space, (2) the process of L1-L2 separation, and (3) his L1 vowel system in relation to L2. The child initially utilized his L1 base in building the L2 vowel system. The L1-L2 separation started from a drastic restructuring of his working vowel space to create maximal contrast between the two languages. Meanwhile, L1 developmental processes and influence of L2 on L1 were also in effect. The developmental profile of this child uncovered strategies sequential bilingual children may use to restructure their phonetic space and construct a new system of contrasts in L2.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , September 2015 , pp. 1125 - 1145
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported, in part, by the Ruth Becky Irwin Fund in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at The Ohio State University. The authors would also like to thank the subject and his mother for participating in this longitudinal study.

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