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Article published In: Language, Interaction and Acquisition
Vol. 10:2 (2019) ► pp.177–203

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The production of geminates in Italian-dominant bilinguals and heritage speakers of Italian

 | University of Konstanz
 | Lund University
 | University of Konstanz | UiT, Arctic University of Norway
Published online: 4 November 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.18015.ein
Abstract
This study examines cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in adult Italian-German bilinguals based on the production of gemination, a phenomenon that exists in Italian but not in German. We analyzed the spontaneous Italian speech of two groups of Italian-German bilinguals (heritage speakers of Italian and Italian-dominant bilinguals) and a monolingual Italian control group. The results show that the geminates produced by the speakers in both bilingual groups were longer than their singletons. From this it seems that gemination is not affected by CLI. Based on our results, we discuss whether CLI is determined by (1) markedness, (2) frequency of Italian input during acquisition, (3) language dominance or (4) relevance (e.g. phonemic status), concluding that the latter is most crucial.
Résumé
Cette étude porte sur l’influence trans-linguistique chez les bilingues adultes italien-allemand dans la production de la gémination, un phénomène existant en italien mais pas en allemand. Nous avons analysé les productions italiennes des consonnes de deux groupes de bilingues italo-allemands simultanés (bilingues avec l’italien comme langue faible/minoritaire et bilingues avec l’italien comme langue dominante/majoritaire) et d’un groupe d’italiens monolingues. Les résultats montrent que les deux groupes sont capables de produire un contraste entre les consonnes simples et les consonnes géminées. Sur la base de ces résultats, nous nous demandons si l’influence trans-linguistique est déterminée par (1) le statut marqué des géminées, (2) la fréquence de l’input italien pendant l’acquisition, (3) la dominance linguistique ou (4) la pertinence phonologique (en l’occurrence le statut phonématique en lien avec une distinction de signification) et concluons que la pertinence est le facteur le plus important.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The sound systems of heritage speakers
    • 2.1Global accent in adult HSs
    • 2.2Segmental and supra-segmental aspects of adult HSs pronunciation
  • 3.Gemination
    • 3.1Geminates in Italian
    • 3.2Geminates in language acquisition
  • 4.Aims and predictions
  • 5.Participants and methods
    • 5.1Participants and their accent profiles
    • 5.2Method
      • 5.2.1Recordings
      • 5.2.2Acoustic measurements
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Speech rate
    • 6.2Description of consonant and vowel duration by speakers
    • 6.3Statistical analysis
  • 7.Summary and discussion
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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