Presented at LSRL42, Utah 2012

1. Vowel Quality Change in
Romanian Heritage Speakers
SORINA DRAGUSANU
WESTERN UNIVERSITY

2. Overview
 Heritage Speakers
 Other Literature
 Participants
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion

3. Heritage Speakers
 Who are they?
 Term coined in Canada in 1970 (Cummins, 2005)
 Child or adult speakers of a linguistic minority who grew
up exposed to both dominant and minority language
(Montrul, 2010)
 Little or no access to language education

4. Heritage Speakers
 Who are they?
 Simultaneous bilingual – learns both languages at the
same time
 Sequential bilingual – learns native language then the
dominant one (up-to age 5)

5. Heritage Speakers
 What do we know about their language abilities?
 Varied language abilities (low to near-native)
 Stronger ethnic ties or larger linguistic market is linked
with overall better language performance.
 Sequential bilinguals perform better than simultaneous
bilinguals

6. Heritage Speakers
 What do we know about their language abilities?
 Speakers display both native and non-native
pronunciations
 Phonetic distance is a factor in preserving native-like
pronunciation (Godson, 2004)

7. Heritage Speakers
 Why are they interesting to study?
 The role of language internal and external factors
 The emergence of new linguistic varieties
 Diachronic language change
 The very nature of the mental constitution of language
and cognition

8. Research Questions
 What is the overall change in the vowel quality of
heritage speakers of Romanian?
 What social or linguistic factors contribute to this
change?

9. Romanian
 Vowel inventory
i ɨ u
e ə o
a
 Frequency (Renwick, 2011):
i 25% u 11%
e 20% ə 5%
a 20% ɨ 2%
o 12%

10. Hypotheses
 If phonetic distance is a more prominent factor than
order of acquisition then the central high vowel is
preserved in HS
 Simultaneous bilinguals will be considerably more
affected than sequential bilinguals;
 Sequential bilinguals pattern more closely with late
bilinguals.

11. Participants
 Where
 South-Western Ontario
 Heritage groups
 Simultaneous bilinguals
 Sequential bilinguals
 Adult groups
 Late Bilinguals – learned Romanian in native environment,;
English is second language learned in school
 Age ranges from 15-30 at the time of immigration

12. Methods
 Data collection
 Interviews
 One hour long
 Detailed language background, demographics, and language
attitudes
 Word list (Swadesh, 1971)
 100 words
 Frequently used words
 Mainly single and disyllabic
 About 14 token per vowel

13. Methods
 Vowel Normalization Process:
 Since speaker’s mouth shapes and pitch differ we cannot
do a one-to-one comparison. Normalization scales and
overlaps the vowel space of groups of individuals for
better comparison
 Function found in the vowel package for R
 Lobanov normalization technique for complete vowel
inventories

14. Mean Formant Values for Control
Individual vowel formant values
Non-Normalized
non-normalized
400
i
450
u
central
500
e o
F1
550
schwa
600
a
650
Control
1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800
F2

15. Mean Formant Values formant values
Individual vowel for Late Bilingual
Non-Normalized
non-normalized
300
i
u
400
central
500
e
F1
o
schwa
600
700
Dio
a
2000 1500 1000
F2

16. Mean Formant Values for Late Bilingual and Control
Individual vowel formant values
Lobanov normalized Normalized
Lobanov
•The late bilinguals have the
closest productions to the
i
i control
-1
u •Changes are observed in the
central
u schwa and back vowels
central
•T-test results show
significant change for F2 of
0
o
e
e schwa and back vowels
F*1
o
schwa
1
schwa
a
2
Control a
Dio
2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5
F*2

17. Individual vowel formant valuesSequential Bilingual
Mean Formant Values for
Lobanov normalized Normalized
Lobanov
•Sequential bilinguals are
much more varied in their
i
productions
-1
i u •Changes are observed in all
central u vowels
central
•Group results show
o o significant changes for the F2
0
e
values of back vowels, much
F*1
e like the late bilingual group
schwa
1
schwa
a
2
Laura a
Control
2 1 0 -1
F*2

18. Mean Formant Values for Simultaneous Bilingual
Individual vowel formant values
Lobanov normalized Normalized
Lobanov
•Simultaneous bilinguals are
the most varied in production
i
i of Romanian vowels
-1
u
•As with simultaneous group,
u
changes are observed in all
central vowels
central •Group results however show
that this group has the most
0
e o
F*1
o significant changes,
e schwa especially in the mid vowels,
[e] [ə] and [ɨ]
1
schwa
a
Control a
2
Simultaneous Bilingual
2 1 0 -1
F*2

19. Discussion & Conclusion
 Phonetic distance does not help heritage speakers
distinguish [ɨ] from other vowels as predicted by the
SLM and seen in Godson’s (2004) paper
 Simultaneous bilinguals have a difficult time
mapping out the central vowel space of Romanian
 Frequency of use and the existence of minimal pairs
are crucial to forming and maintaining the necessary
contrast between this vowel and the mid-central
 In addition, F2 and the back vowels are more
susceptible to variation and influence.

20. Thank you!
 Selected Sources:
 Bullock, B. E. & Green, C. (2004). Phonological convergence in a
contracting language variety. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 7(2), 95-104.
 Clopper, C. G. (2009). Computational methods for normalizing
acoustic vowel data for talker differences. Language and Linguistics
Compass, 3 (6), 1430–1442.
 Godson, L. (2004). Vowel production in the speech of western
Armenian heritage speakers. Heritage Language Journal, 2 (1).
 Locke, J. L. (1983). Phonological acquisition and change. New York:
Academic Press.
 Montrul, S. (2010). Current issues in heritage language acquisition.
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics,30, pp. 3-23

21. Thank you!
 Please comment if you have any questions or would
like to see more results and discussion.