Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T14:05:11.103Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FILLED PAUSES ARE SUSCEPTIBLE TO CROSS-LANGUAGE PHONETIC INFLUENCE

EVIDENCE FROM AFRIKAANS-SPANISH BILINGUALS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2020

Lorenzo García-Amaya Open the ORCID record for Lorenzo García-Amaya [Opens in a new window]  and
Sean Lang
Lorenzo García-Amaya
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Sean Lang
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of long-term bilingualism on the production of filled pauses (FPs; e.g., uh, um, eh, em) in the speech of Afrikaans-Spanish bilinguals from Patagonia, Argentina. The instrumental analysis draws from a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews obtained from three speaker groups: L1-Afrikaans/L2-Spanish bilinguals; L1-Spanish-comparison speakers, also from Patagonia; and L1-Afrikaans-comparison speakers from South Africa. In the data analysis, we examined relative FP usage (categorical outcomes), as well as phonetic measures of vowel quality and segmental duration (continuous outcomes). The results allude to multiple patterns of cross-language influence (e.g., L1-to-L2 influence, L2-to-L1 influence, bidirectional influence), which depend on the phonetic measure explored. Overall, the findings suggest that the patterns of cross-language phonetic influence observed in the L2 learning of traditionally understood lexical items likewise hold in the L2 learning of hesitation markers such as FPs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , December 2020 , pp. 1077 - 1105
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was partially funded through the University of Michigan Humanities Collaboratory grant entitled “From Africa to Patagonia: Voices of Displacement.”

References

REFERENCES

Acton, E. K. (2011). On gender differences in the distribution of um and uh. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 17, 2.Google Scholar
Adank, P., Smits, R., & Van Hout, R. (2004). A comparison of vowel normalization procedures for language variation research. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116, 3099–3107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adell, J., Escudero, D., & Bonafonte, A. (2012). Production of filled pauses in concatenative speech synthesis based on the underlying fluent sentence. Speech Communication, 54, 459–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antoniou, M., Best, C., Tyler, M., & Kroos, C. (2011). Inter-language interference in VOT production by L2-dominant bilinguals: Asymmetries in phonetic code-switching. Journal of Phonetics, 39, 558–570.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67, 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedore, L. M., Fiestas, C. E., Peña, E., & Nagy, V. J. (2006). Cross-language comparisons of maze use in Spanish and English in functionally monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 233–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Best, C. T., & Tyler, M. D. (2007). Nonnative and second-language speech perception: Commonalities and complementarities. In Bohn, O. S., & Munro, M. (Eds.), Second-language speech learning (pp. 13–34). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birdsong, D., Gertken, L. M., & Amengual, M. (2012). Bilingual language profile: An easy-to-use instrument to assess bilingualism. COERLL, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2018). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer Program]. Version 6.0.39.Google Scholar
Bortfeld, H., Leon, S. D., Bloom, J. E., Schober, M. F., & Brennan, S. E. (2001). Disfluency rates in conversation: Effects of age, relationship, topic, role, and gender. Language and Speech, 44, 123–147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bosker, H. R., Quené, H., Sanders, T. J. M., & de Jong, N. H. (2014). The perception of fluency in native and non-native speech. Language Learning, 64, 579–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, C. B. (2012). Rapid and multifaceted effects of second-language learning on first-language speech production. Journal of Phonetics, 40, 249–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. H., & Fox Tree, J. E. (2002). Using uh and um in spontaneous speaking. Cognition, 84, 73–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coetzee, A. W., García-Amaya, L., Kim, J., Wissing, D., & Henriksen, N. (2019). Velar palatalization in Patagonian and South-African Afrikaans: Language and settlement history in an expatriate community. In  Calhoun, S., Escudero, P., Tabain, M., & Warren, P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019 (pp. 1610–1614). Australian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.Google Scholar
De Johnson, T. H., O’Connell, D. C., & Sabin, E. (1979). Temporal analysis of English and Spanish narratives. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 13, 347–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, N. H. (2016). Predicting pauses in L1 and L2 speech: The effects of utterance boundaries and word frequency. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 54, 113–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, N. H., Groenhout, R., Schoonen, R., & Hulstijn, J. H. (2015). Second language fluency: Speaking style or proficiency? Correcting measures of second language fluency for first language behavior. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36, 223–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, N. H., & Mora, J. C. (2019). Does having good articulatory skills lead to more fluent speech in first and second languages? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 41, 227–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, N. H., & Wempe, T. (2009). Praat script to detect syllable nuclei and measure speech rate automatically. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 385–390.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Derwing, T. M., Rossiter, M. J., Munro, M. J., & Thomson, R. I. (2004). L2 fluency: Judgments on different tasks. Language Learning, 54, 655–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
du Toit, B. M. (1995). Colonia Boer, an Afrikaner Settlement in Chubut. Argentina: Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Erker, D., & Bruso, J. (2017). Uh, bueno, em: Filled pauses as a site of contact-induced change in Boston Spanish. Language Variation and Change, 29, 205–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erker, D., & Otheguy, R. (2016). Contact and coherence: Dialectal leveling and structural convergence in NYC Spanish. Lingua, 172, 131–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1987). The production of “new” and “similar” phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, W. (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 233–277). York Press.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Yeni-Komshian, G. H., & Liu, S. (1999). Age constraints on second-language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 78–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, C. A., Sramko, V., Ostry, D. J., Rowland, S. A., & Hallé, P. (2008). Cross language phonetic influences on the speech of French-English bilinguals. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 649–663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fruehwald, J. (2016). Filled pause choice as a sociolinguistic variable. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 22, 2.Google Scholar
García-Amaya, L. (2009). New findings on fluency measures across three different learning contexts. In Collentine, J., García, M., Lafford, B., & Marcos-Marín, F. (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 68–80). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Goldman-Eisler, F. (1961). A comparative study of two hesitation phenomena. Language and Speech, 4, 18–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman-Eisler, F. (1968). Psycholinguistics: Experiments in spontaneous speech. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Graham, L. A. (2013). Comparing Hesitation Markers in Sanjuanero Spanish. Diálago de La Lengua, 5, 66–77.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henriksen, N., Coetzee, A., García-Amaya, L., Alberto, P. L., Langland, V., Szpiech, R., & Shapero, J. (2018). From Africa to Patagonia: Voices of displacement. Babel, 24, 16–21.Google Scholar
Henriksen, N., Coetzee, A., García-Amaya, L., Wissing, D., & Bouavichith, D. (2017). Phonological effects of long-term language contact: Spanish and Afrikaans in Patagonia. In Paper presented at Laboratory Phonology 2018. Lisbon: Portugal.Google Scholar
Henriksen, N., García-Amaya, L., Coetzee, A. W., & Wissing, D. (2019). Language contact in Patagonia: Durational control in the acquisition of Spanish and Afrikaans phonology. In Colina, S., & Martínez-Gil, F. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Spanish phonology (pp. 416–438). Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoening, J., & Heisey, D. (2012). The abuse of power. The American Statistician, 55, 19–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, W. S., Spieler, D. H., & Shriberg, E. (2010). A corpus analysis of patterns of age-related change in conversational speech. Psychology and Aging, 25, 708–713.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B. (2014). lmerTest: Tests for random and fixed effects for linear mixed effect models (lmer objects of lme4 package). R package version 2.0-6.Google Scholar
Levelt, W. J. (1983). Monitoring and self-repair in speech. Cognition, 14, 41–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lo, J. J. H. (2019). Between äh(m) and euh(m): The distribution and realization of filled pauses in the speech of German-French simultaneous bilinguals. Language and Speech. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830919890068Google ScholarPubMed
Lobanov, B. M. (1971). Classification of Russian vowels spoken by different speakers. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 49, 606–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machuca Ayuso, M. (2018). Filled pauses and bilingualism. Estudios de Fonética Experimental, 27, 75–95.Google Scholar
Maclay, H., & Osgood, C. E. (1959). Hesitation phenomena in spontaneous English speech. Word, 15, 19–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mennen, I. (2004). Bi-directional interference in the intonation of Dutch speakers of Greek. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 543–563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirdamadi, F., & de Jong, N. H. (2015). The effect of syntactic complexity on fluency: Comparing actives and passives in L1 and L2 speech. Second Language Research, 31, 105–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, J., & Ortega, L. (2009). Towards an organic approach to investigating CAF in instructed SLA: The case of complexity. Applied Linguistics, 30, 555–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, D. J. (2019). Feature acquisition in L2 phonetic development: Evidence from phonetic training. Language Learning, 69, 366–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortega, L. (2016). Multi-competence in second language acquisition: Inroads into the mainstream? In Cook, V., & Wei, L. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of linguistic multi-competence (pp. 50–76). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, G. E., & Lehiste, I. (1960). Duration of syllable nuclei in English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 32, 693–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccaluga, M., Poch-Olivé, D., & Harmegnies, B. (2008). Effects of the multilingual phonologic competence on the phonetic properties of filled pauses. In Sock, R., Fuchs, S., & Laprie, Y. (Eds.), 8th International Seminar on Speech Production (pp. 141–144). Strasbourg, France.Google Scholar
Poplack, S., & Levey, S. (2010). Contact-induced grammatical change: A cautionary tale. In Auer, P., & Schmidt, J. E. (Eds.), Language and space: An international handbook of linguistic variation: Theories and methods (pp. 391–419). Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2015). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org/Google Scholar
Riazantseva, A. (2001). Second language proficiency and pausing a study of Russian speakers of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23, 497–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, R. (2017). A comparison of form and temporal characteristics of filled pauses in L1 Japanese and L2 English. Journal of Phonetic Society of Japan, 21, 33–40.Google Scholar
Rothman, J. (2007). Heritage speaker competence differences, language change, and input type Inflected infinitives in Heritage Brazilian Portuguese. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11, 359–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sancier, M. L., & Fowler, C. A. (1997). Gestural drift in a bilingual speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and English. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 421–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segalowitz, N., & Freed, B. F. (2004). Context, contact, and cognition in oral fluency acquisition: Learning Spanish in at home and study abroad contexts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 173–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shriberg, E. E. (1994). Preliminaries to a theory of speech disfluencies. University of California, Berkeley: Unpublished doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar
Swerts, M., Wichmann, A., & Beun, R. -J. (1996). Filled pauses as markers of discourse structure. Proceeding of Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (Vol. 2, pp. 1033–1036). IEEE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szpiech, R., Shapero, J., Coetzee, A. W., García-Amaya, L., Alberto, P., Langland, V., Johandes, E., & Henriksen, N. (in press). Afrikaans in Patagonia: Language shift and cultural integration in a rural immigrant community. International Journal of the Sociology of Language.Google Scholar
Tavakoli, P., & Skehan, P. (2005). Strategic planning, task structure and performance testing. In Ellis, R. (Ed.), Planning and task performance in a second language (pp. 239–277). John BenjaminsCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tian, Y., Maruyama, T., & Ginzburg, J. (2017). Self addressed questions and filled pauses: A cross-linguistic investigation. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46, 905–922.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Torres Cacoullos, R., & Travis, C. E. (2018). Bilingualism in the community: Code-Switching and grammars in contact. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Schalkwyk, R. (1989). Afrikaans in Argentinië: ’n Linguistiese en Sosiolinguistsiese Beskrywing. [Afrikaans in Argentina: A Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Description.] Master’s thesis, Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, South Africa.Google Scholar
Villa, J., Gil, J., & Lahoz-Bengoechea, J. M. (2017). Las vocales de relleno en español: Nuevos datos y algunas reflexiones. In Ruiz-Miralles, L., Silva, M. R. Álvarez, & Alvarado, A. Muñoz (Eds.), Nuevos estudios sobre comunicación social (pp. 165–169). Centro de Lingüística Aplicada.Google Scholar
Wieling, M., Grieve, J., Bouma, G., Fruehwald, J., Coleman, J., & Liberman, M. (2016). Variation and change in the use of hesitation markers in Germanic languages. Language Dynamics and Change, 6, 199–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar