Nonsibilant Fricative Acquisition by Bilingual Guoyu-Taiwanese Southern Min Children

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Nonsibilant Fricative Acquisition by Bilingual Guoyu-Taiwanese Southern Min Children Nonsibilant Fricative Acquisition by Bilingual Guoyu-Taiwanese Southern Min Children THESIS Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jennifer Qian Zhang Graduate Program in Linguistics The Ohio State University 2016 Master's Examination Committee: Dr. Mary Beckman, Advisor Dr. Micha Elsner Copyright by Jennifer Qian Zhang 2016 Abstract Phonological acquisition by children is strongly influenced by language-specific and socio-environmental factors, rather than being determined strictly by linguistic universals or biological constraints. Although early research, primarily on acquisition by monolingual English-speaking children, supported the hypothesis of linguistic universals, evidence from cross-language studies show wide variation in the acquisition order of sounds. Looking specifically at the acquisition of the nonsibilant fricatives /f/, /x/, and /h/, this study examines acquisition patterns by bilingual Guoyu-Taiwanese Southern Min speaking children in Taiwan. Transcription results show that while children are able to articulate both [x] and [h] before the age of 2;5 (2 years and 5 months), /f/ is phonologically acquired first around the age of 5, while /x/ and /h/ are acquired after the age of 6. The late acquisition of /x/ and especially /h/ may result from the wide range of /x/ and /h/ realizations by adults, due to the relative statuses of the two languages and the linguistic history of Taiwan. The current study complements Shih's (2012) study on the acquisition of sibilants to provide a holistic account of fricative acquisition by children in Taiwan. ii Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express the utmost gratitude to Mary Beckman for her mentorship and support over the past few years. With her genuine enthusiasm for a wide range of linguistic curiosities and her immense dedication to her work, she has been an enormous inspiration to me as I grow in my capacity as a researcher, and I aspire to one day encourage others even half as much as she has encouraged me. I would also like to extend my thanks to Micha Elsner for being ever open to offering assistance and for expressing his faith in my abilities, thereby spurring me to reach my potential. This thesis would not have been possible without the support of Ya-ting Shih. I am grateful to have worked with her as an undergraduate and to have her continued correspondence despite the changes in time and distance. I would also like to thank the members of Lacqueys for their insightful comments and suggestions on the present thesis, and I express my thanks to Cynthia Clopper and my classmates from her journal writing workshop for the valuable feedback on previous work with Ya-ting. For moral support, I thank the members of my half-cohort, and in particular, David King, Martha Austen, and Ellen Dossey. I would also like to express my immense gratefulness toward Vi Le for steadfast companionship and treasured conversations. Finally, I would like to express special thanks to Toni Vesala for his patience and neverending encouragement through this entire journey. iii Vita 2008 ............................................................ Hudson High School 2012 ............................................................ B.A. Linguistics, The Ohio State University 2016 to present ........................................... Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University Publications Shih, Y., Kallay, J., & Zhang, J. (2012). Sibilant production patterns in three generations of Guoyu-Taiwanese bilinguals [Abstract]. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 132, 1938. Fields of Study Major Field: Linguistics iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iii Vita ............................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................v List of Tables................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1: Child Phonological Acquisition .....................................................................1 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................1 1.2 Fricatives and Acquisition ......................................................................................3 1.3 Acquisition by Monolingual English Children ........................................................5 1.4 Cross-linguistic Variation .......................................................................................7 Chapter 2: Language Background of Taiwan ................................................................. 14 2.1 Language History ................................................................................................. 14 2.2 Phonology of Guoyu ............................................................................................ 17 2.3 Phonology of Taiwanese Southern Min ................................................................ 20 2.4 Relationship among Nonsibilant Fricatives ........................................................... 22 v Chapter 3: Research Methodology ................................................................................. 27 3.1 Research Questions .............................................................................................. 27 3.2 Participants .......................................................................................................... 27 3.3 Stimulus Materials ............................................................................................... 28 3.4 Procedure ............................................................................................................. 29 3.5 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................... 31 3.5.1 Transcription ................................................................................................. 31 3.5.2 Determining the Age of Acquisition ............................................................... 34 Chapter 4: Results.......................................................................................................... 36 4.1 General Results .................................................................................................... 36 4.2 Phonetic Acquisition ............................................................................................ 39 4.3 Phonological Acquisition ..................................................................................... 39 4.4 Phonological Mastery ........................................................................................... 41 4.5 Errors and Error Rates .......................................................................................... 42 Chapter 5: Discussion .................................................................................................... 45 5.1 Discussion ............................................................................................................ 45 5.2 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 48 References ..................................................................................................................... 50 Appendix A: Word Lists ................................................................................................ 58 vi List of Tables Table 1. Word-initial fricatives in English. ......................................................................5 Table 2. Acquisition age of English fricatives by American English children. ..................6 Table 3. Age of fricative acquisition across various languages. ...................................... 11 Table 4. Surface consonants of Guoyu. .......................................................................... 18 Table 5. Surface vowels of Guoyu. ................................................................................ 20 Table 6. Surface consonants of Taiwanese Southern Min. .............................................. 20 Table 7. Surface vowels of Taiwanese Southern Min. .................................................... 22 Table 8. Number of child participants. ........................................................................... 28 Table 9. Percent accuracy (s.d.) of nonsibilant fricatives across age groups. ................... 36 Table 10. Phonetic acquisition of nonsibilant fricatives. ................................................. 39 Table 11. Percent of children with 75% or greater accuracy. .......................................... 40 Table 12. Percent of children with 90% or greater accuracy. .......................................... 41 Table 13. Guoyu word list. ............................................................................................ 58 Table 14. Taiwanese Southern Min word list. ...............................................................
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