ERIC Number: EJ1157775
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Nov
Pages: 31
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
The Emergence of Phonetic Categories in Korean-English Bilingual Children
Lee, Sue Ann S.; Iverson, Gregory K.
Journal of Child Language, v44 n6 p1485-1515 Nov 2017
The present study examined the speech production of three-year-old Korean-English bilingual (KEB) children. English and Korean stops, as well as front vowels in both languages, were compared acoustically among the KEB children, then also measured against those of their age-equivalent monolingual counterparts. Evidence of distinctive phonetic categorization in bilingual children was more salient in vowels than in stops. Vowels and stops produced by the bilingual children were not significantly different from those of their monolingual counterparts. The findings suggest that, similar to other language domains, two linguistic systems are apparent in the phonetic production component of three-year-old KEB children, but that phonetic distinctiveness in production may not emerge holistically in an across-the-board fashion, appearing earlier in vowels than stops. Thus, the phonetic production systems of the two languages may develop with only limited interaction in simultaneous KEB children exposed to two languages at an early age.
Descriptors: Korean, English, Bilingualism, Young Children, Phonetics, Speech, Vowels, Comparative Analysis, Monolingualism, Classification
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (NIH)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1R03HD061527A