Doctoral Dissertation Research: An experimental approach to phonetic transfer in the production and perception of early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals

这篇论文考察了双语者中一种语言对另一种语言的影响，他们从小就学习这两种语言，并在双语社区中继续广泛使用这两种语言。以前的研究表明，主导语言会干扰另一种语言的语音习得，即使双语者有最有利的条件同时学习这两种语言，西班牙马略卡岛上说西班牙语和加泰罗尼亚语的人就是这样。这项研究的假设是，双语者能够感知西班牙语中不存在的加泰罗尼亚语中的元音，并且他们也能够准确地产生这些元音，但之前未被检查的因素，包括单词是否在两种语言(同源词)之间共享，以及说话者的语言优势、使用、年龄和对语言的态度，也对他们在某些单词中感知和产生元音的准确性起到了作用。40名西班牙语和40名加泰罗尼亚语占主导地位的双语者将参加三项实验。第一，将考察加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语目标元音的产生情况。第二个实验将测试他们对这些元音的感知。最后，第三个实验将测试他们是否知道特定单词中哪个元音是正确的。如果这些说话者准确地完成这些任务，它将驳斥主导语言干扰另一种语言习得的说法。本研究将为双语研究的方法提供参考，不仅在语音学方面，而且在心理语言学、社会语言学和语言接触领域，提供更清晰的图像，在单词水平和个人声音水平上的产生和感知模式。该奖项将支持一位有前途的学者的科学培训。

This dissertation project examines the influence of one language on the other in bilinguals who learn both languages from a very young age and who continue to use both languages extensively within a bilingual community. Previous research has suggested that the dominant language interferes with the acquisition of the phonetics of the other language even when bilinguals have the most favorable conditions to learn both, which is the case of Spanish and Catalan speakers on the island of Majorca (Spain). The hypothesis of this study is that bilinguals are able to perceive the vowels in Catalan that do not exist in Spanish and that they are also able to produce them accurately but that previously unexamined factors, including whether the words are shared between two languages (cognates), and a speaker's language dominance, use, age and attitudes about language, also play a role in how accurately they perceive and produce vowels in certain words. 40 Spanish- and 40 Catalan-dominant bilinguals will participate in three experiments. The first, will investigate the production of the Catalan and Spanish target vowels. The second experiment will test their perception of these vowels. Finally, the third experiment will test whether they know which vowel is correct in a particular word. If these speakers perform these tasks accurately it would refute the claim that the dominant language interferes with the acquisition of the other language.The present study will inform methodologies in the study of bilingualism, not only in phonetics, but also in the domains of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language contact, providing a clearer picture of production and perception patterns at the level of the word and at the individual sound level. This award will support the scientific training of a promising scholar.