First language attrition in the speech of Dutch-English bilinguals: the case of monozygotic twin sisters

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Author
Mayr, Robert
Price, Sacha
Mennen, Ineke
Date
2012Type
Article
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Metadata
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Recent years have seen a proliferation of research on attrition in L1 speech (de Leeuw, Mennen & Scobbie, in press; de
Leeuw, Schmid & Mennen, 2010; Dmitrieva, Jongman & Sereno, 2010; Mennen, 2004). Adding to this line of inquiry, the
present study investigates the speech of a 62-year-old bilingual monozygotic twin who emigrated to an L2-speaking
environment 30 years ago. Changes in L1 accent were assessed by comparing her speech to that of her identical twin sister
who remained in the L1-speaking environment, thus providing a unique control setting. Acoustic analyses of voice onset time
and vowels indicate pervasive changes to the emigrated twin’s L1 accent, with attrition presenting in the form of
cross-linguistic assimilation patterns. Interestingly, her L1 vowel space exhibited a systematic increase in first formant
frequency, confirming claims that L1 and L2 sounds may be related to each other at a system-wide level (Chang, 2010, 2011;
Guion, 2003). Implications for theoretical models of bilingual sound systems are discussed.
Citation
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15 (4), 2012, 687–700
Description
Published by Cambridge University Press in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S136672891100071X
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