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Effect of language dominance on the attrition of Mandarin vowels in Mandarin-Cantonese bilingual
Author(s)
Date Issued
2023
Citation
Yang, Y., Zhan, Z., & Zhang, S. (2023 Dec 2). Effect of language dominance on the attrition of Mandarin vowels in Mandarin-Cantonese bilingual. ARF2023: The 2023 Annual Research Forum of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Purpose: Contact with a second language has been shown to influence the native language
(Bergmann et al., 2016), but the role of language dominance in this process is far from clear. This study aimed to fill this gap by investigating the effect of language dominance on the attrition of Mandarin vowels in Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals.
Methods: A vowel production experiment was conducted with 32 Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals and 22 Mandarin speakers. The 32 bilinguals were divided into two dominance groups according to their scores on a language background questionnaire (Birdsong et al., 2012): a balanced group and an unbalanced group. Production data of five monophthongs (/a/, /o/, /i/, /u/ and /y/) were collected from the participants. After the segmentation of the vowels, the values of the first two formants (F1 and F2) were extracted over the midpoint of each vowel with a Praat script and were then normalised with Lobanov’s approach for each speaker to eliminate individual variations (Lobanov, 1971). Linear mixed-effects modelling was adopted in the analysis of the F1 and F2 values.
Results: For /a/, an effect of group was found only for F2, and both bilingual groups showed higher F2 than the native group. For /o/, there was a marginal effect of group for F2, and only the unbalanced group had lower F2 than the native speakers. For /i/, an effect of group was significant for both F1 and F2, and both bilingual groups had lower F1 and F2 than the native group. For /u/, an effect of group was found for F1 and F2, and the balanced group showed lower F1 and F2 than the native group. For /y/, there was an effect of group for F2, and both bilingual groups had higher F2 than the native group. In addition, Tukey’s post-hoc analyses were conducted for pairwise comparisons of the three groups. As shown in Table 1, the bilingual groups revealed differences in F2 of /a/ and /o/ and F1 and F2 of /u/, and the native group and the unbalanced group did not differ in the production of /u/.
Conclusion: The bilinguals showed attrition in their Mandarin vowel production, and the balanced group exhibited more divergence than the balanced group, suggesting the role of language dominance in vowel attrition.
Methods: A vowel production experiment was conducted with 32 Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals and 22 Mandarin speakers. The 32 bilinguals were divided into two dominance groups according to their scores on a language background questionnaire (Birdsong et al., 2012): a balanced group and an unbalanced group. Production data of five monophthongs (/a/, /o/, /i/, /u/ and /y/) were collected from the participants. After the segmentation of the vowels, the values of the first two formants (F1 and F2) were extracted over the midpoint of each vowel with a Praat script and were then normalised with Lobanov’s approach for each speaker to eliminate individual variations (Lobanov, 1971). Linear mixed-effects modelling was adopted in the analysis of the F1 and F2 values.
Results: For /a/, an effect of group was found only for F2, and both bilingual groups showed higher F2 than the native group. For /o/, there was a marginal effect of group for F2, and only the unbalanced group had lower F2 than the native speakers. For /i/, an effect of group was significant for both F1 and F2, and both bilingual groups had lower F1 and F2 than the native group. For /u/, an effect of group was found for F1 and F2, and the balanced group showed lower F1 and F2 than the native group. For /y/, there was an effect of group for F2, and both bilingual groups had higher F2 than the native group. In addition, Tukey’s post-hoc analyses were conducted for pairwise comparisons of the three groups. As shown in Table 1, the bilingual groups revealed differences in F2 of /a/ and /o/ and F1 and F2 of /u/, and the native group and the unbalanced group did not differ in the production of /u/.
Conclusion: The bilinguals showed attrition in their Mandarin vowel production, and the balanced group exhibited more divergence than the balanced group, suggesting the role of language dominance in vowel attrition.
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