Seminar Kupisch, Acquisition outcomes in the sound systems of Italian heritage speakers (27 April 2021)

Seminar Kupisch, Acquisition outcomes in the sound systems of Italian heritage speakers (27 April 2021)

Tanja Kupisch: Acquisition outcomes in the sound systems of Italian heritage speakers
27 April 2021, 16.00-18.00, Zoom, please see attachment for registration procedure!

The weaker or “heritage” language (HL) of bilingual speakers has received a lot of attention recently. However, their sound systems have been studied less than their morpho-syntax. It is generally assumed in research on adult bilinguals that phonetic and phonological competences, being early-acquired, are relatively robust in heritage languages (e.g. Benmamoun et al. 2013, Montrul 2008). This is, at least to some degree, in contradiction to research on developing bilingual children, which has shown that the two languages of bilingual children are vulnerable to cross-linguistic influence (e.g., Kehoe, 2018, Lleó, 2018). It is true that the accents of (most) heritage speakers (HSs) sound more authentic (or “monolingual-like”) than those of (most) late second language learners. At the same time, monolingual judges take most HSs to be foreign speakers of their native languages. Polinsky (2018) mentions a “heritage accent”. Other studies have shown that HSs are identified as speakers of their dominant language on a par with L2ers, albeit with more moderate accents on a group level. In this talk, I will first summarize recent studies on global accentedness, focussing on Italian HSs. I will then zoom in on particular features of HL sound systems, pointing out that only a subset of properties differs to monolinguals, and that the variation in HSs’ sounds system is often within the range of what is possible in Italian rather than being due to dominant-language influence.
Publication date
Friday, April 16, 2021 - 1:30:40 PM
Subject
Seminar Kupisch, Acquisition outcomes in the sound systems of Italian heritage speakers (27 April 2021)
Published by
Stefan Rabanus
Ph.D. in Linguistics
Ph.D. programme in Foreign Literatures, Languages and Linguistics

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