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

本论文项目考察了一种语言对双语者的影响，这些双语者从小就学习两种语言，并在双语社区中继续广泛使用两种语言。先前的研究表明，即使双语者拥有学习两种语言的最有利条件，主导语言也会干扰另一种语言的语音习得，这就是马略卡岛（西班牙）上说西班牙语和加泰罗尼亚语的人的情况。这项研究的假设是，双语者能够感知加泰罗尼亚语中西班牙语中不存在的元音，并且他们也能够准确地产生这些元音，但之前未被研究的因素，包括单词是否在两种语言之间共享（同源），以及说话者的语言优势，使用，年龄和对语言的态度，也在他们如何准确地感知和产生某些单词中的元音方面发挥作用。40名西班牙语和40名加泰罗尼亚语双语者将参加三个实验。第一部分将研究加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语目标元音的产生。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了这些任务，就会反驳主导语言会干扰另一种语言习得的说法。本研究将为双语研究的方法论提供信息，不仅在语音学领域，而且在心理语言学、社会语言学和语言接触领域，提供一个更清晰的画面，在单词水平和个人声音水平上产生和感知模式。这个奖将支持对有前途的学者进行科学培训。

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.