# Phonological interferences in bilingual acquisition: focus on French and Greek fricatives

Clémence Guieu-Grandsire

► To cite this version:

Clémence Guieu-Grandsire. Phonological interferences in bilingual acquisition: focus on French and Greek fricatives. International Child Phonology Conference (ICPC), Jun 2021, Online, Canada. .
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Submitted on 16 Nov 2022

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
## GLOSSARY

**Phonological system acquisition**
= establishing sound contrasts

* in perception = adult-like identification of correct and incorrect realization of contrast's members

* in production = adult-like realization of contrast's members

**Simultaneous bilinguals:** children exposed to two languages **since birth** (Patterson, 2002)

## RESEARCH QUESTION

**Aim:** Show evidences of interaction between phonological systems in bilingual acquisition by comparing them to monolingual peers, under three types of interferences in production and perception

**Question:** How do sound systems interact in bilinguals' production and perception?

## INTERFERENCES, SIGNS OF INTERACTION

Paradis & Genesee (1996)

**Acceleration:** Earlier emergence of certain properties in one or both languages in bilinguals compared to monolinguals

**Deceleration:** Later emergence of certain properties in bilinguals compared to monolinguals

**Transfer:** One property is transferred from one language into the other + is strongly influenced by language dominance

## OUR HYPOTHESES in PERCEPTION & PRODUCTION

**Shared contrasts** between both languages
LABIAL-CORONAL (/f, v/ vs. /s, z/)

**Specific contrasts** between both languages

[±posterior] for French (/s, z/ vs /f, ʒ/) & [±strident] for Greek (/s, z/ vs /θ, ð/)

**Influence of input on acquisition of specific contrasts**
[±posterior] → /s, z/ vs /f, ʒ/ acquired before [±strident] → /s, z/ vs /θ, ð/

## METHOD

13 typically developing children
(2;6 → 4;6 years old)

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

4 French-Greek
simultaneous
bilinguals

(mean age = 3 ;4)

French
Tasks

Greek
Tasks

4 Greek
monolinguals
(mean age = 3 ;8)

Took place at the child's home

## PRODUCTION

Picture naming task

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

Transcription +
Analyses with PHON
(Rose et al., 2006)

**Measured:**

* adult-like productions

* substitutions

## PERCEPTION

Discrimination task (Based on Sundara et al., (2006))

Children were asked to press a red button every time they heard an "incorrect"

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

[velo] "bike"

[zelo]

[ʒelo]

[ðelo]

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

**Measured:**

* accurate identification

* confusion

(when an inaccurate
realisation was accepted)

* reaction time

**Perception:** Bilinguals **reacted faster** than monolinguals to identify an inaccurate realization

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

## RESULTS

### 1. Shared contrasts

**Production:** bilinguals and monolinguals **showed no substitutions** between members of the shared contrast /v/-/z/

**Perception:** Bilinguals **accepted less mispronunciations** than monolinguals when /v/ or /z/ were substituted

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

### 2. Specific contrasts

**Perception:** Bilinguals **showed more confusion** than monolinguals when /ð/ is the target member of [±strident] /z/-/ð/ in Greek but not in French

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Fig 1: Percentages of accurate identification (in green) and confusion (in red) of /ð/ (left) and /ʃ/ (right) by bilingual and monolingual children</figcaption></figure>

**Production:** Bilinguals **showed more substitutions** with [z] than monolinguals when /ð/ is the target member of [±strident] /z/-/ð/ in Greek and [s] for /ʃ/ in French

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Fig 2: Percentages of adult-like production (in green) and substitutions (in red) of /ð/ (left) and /ʃ/ (right) by bilingual and monolingual children</figcaption></figure>

### 3. Transfer & Dominance

**Perception:** Bilinguals **showed less confusion** with [s] when the target is the French /ʃ/ than when the target is the Greek /θ/

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Fig 3: Percentages of accurate identification (in green) and confusion (in red) of /θ/ (left) and /ʃ/ (right) by bilingual children</figcaption></figure>

**Production:** Bilinguals **showed less substitutions** with [s] when the target is the French /ʃ/ than when the target is the Greek /θ/

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Fig 4: Percentages of adult-like production (in green) and substitutions (in red) of /θ/ (left) and /ʃ/ (right) by bilingual children</figcaption></figure>

## DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION

**Interferences are:**

Triggered by cross-linguistic differences in structural properties:

1. **No acceleration:** bilinguals did not show better perception nor production of shared contrasts' members compared to monolinguals

2. **Deceleration:** bilinguals showed more substitutions and more confusion than monolinguals when targets are [-strident] /θ, ð/ in Greek and [+posterior] /ʃ, ʒ/ in French

Affected by language dominance in the child's input (Foroodi-Nejad & Paradis (2009))

3. **Transfer** in contrasts acquisition order: French contrast [±posterior] is mastered before the Greek contrast [±strident]

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>

**General Bilingual Effect**

* **Less confusion + Shorter reaction time to identify inaccurate realisation of shared contrasts members**
  → **Could be interpreted as acceleration**

**BUT**

* **It would not be linked to interaction between structural properties but rather to a general bilingual effect** (Kehoe & Havy, 2019), resulting in:

* a more efficient information processing (Patuto et al., 2011)

* a higher perceptive sensitivity by bilinguals

<footnote>References: • Foroodi-Nejad, F., & Paradis, J. (2009). Cross-linguistic transfer in the acquisition of compound words in Persian-English bilinguals. *Bilingualism: Language and Cognition*, 12(4), 411-427; • Kehoe, M., & Havy, M. (2019). French phonological acquisition: The influence of language-internal, language-external, and lexical factors. *Journal of Child Language*, 46(2), 292-333; • Paradis, J., & Genesee, F. (1996). Syntactic Acquisition in Bilingual Children. *Studies in Second Language Acquisition*, 18, 1-25; • Patterson, J. L. (2002). Relationships of Expressive Vocabulary to Frequency of Reading and Television Experience among Bilingual Toddlers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23(4), 493-508; • Patulo, M., Repetto, V., & Möller, N. (2011). Delay and acceleration in bilingual first language acquisition (p. 231-261). • Rose, Y. MacWhinnie, B., Byrne, R., Hedlund, G., Maddocks, K., O'Brien, P., & Wareham, T. (2006). Introducing Phon: A Software Solution for the Study of Phonological Acquisition. *Proceedings of the Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development*, Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2006, 489-500; • Sundara, M., Polka, L., & Genesee, F. (2006). Language-experience facilitates discrimination of /d-th/ in monolingual and bilingual acquisition of English. *Cognition*, 100(2), 369-388.</footnote>