The transfer of patterns of VOT in plosives deaf multilingualism

Abstract

Departing from an emergentist approach, this study investigates the differences in the patterns of VOT in voiceless consonants of English produced by monolingual and multilingual children. The aim of this study is twofold: 1) to compare the VOT patterns of voiceless stops produced in English as an L2 by monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) in the initial stages of EFL with the VOT patterns produced in English as an L3 by bilingual speakers of Pomeranian (L1) and BP (L2) (between group analysis); and 2) to analyze the dynamics of transfer in the VOT patterns of the initial obstruents /p/, /t/ and /k/ in the three languages spoken by multilingual children (within group analysis). The participants in this study were 40 children aged 8 to 10 years old studying in the 3rd grade of a public school in Arroio do Padre. They were divided in two groups, one with 20 monolingual children, and another one with 20 bilingual children. The monolinguals spoke Brazilian Portuguese; the bilinguals, in turn, spoke Pomeranian and German (L1), and BP (L2) on a daily basis. English was studied as an L2 by monolinguals and as an L3 by bi/multilinguals. To achieve the objectives, a tool for storytelling was used, in three languages (Portuguese, Pomeranian and English), along with a game that would elicit the production of carrier sentences containing target words initiated by voiceless plosives. These words were recorded in studio and acoustically analyzed for the VOT means produced were compared. There was a significant difference between the means produced by monolingual and multilingual plosives in English, which suggests a strong influence from the participants’ L1 on the production of aspirated stops in English as an L3 (in the case of bi/multilinguals) and as an L2 (in the case of monolinguals).