Contribution to Book
What can Cantonese heritage speakers tell us about age of acquisition, linguistic dominance, and sociophonetic variation?
Variation in Second and Heritage Languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives
(2022)
Abstract
For many individuals, the first acquired language is also the linguistically dominant language, but what are the implications for sociophonetic variation if the linguistically dominant language is a second acquired childhood language, as is the case for many heritage speakers? This chapter addresses two correlates of linguistic dominance on the production of L2-influenced vowels in heritage Cantonese sociolinguistic interview data. Results show that Cantonese Production Score (CPS), an externally measured proficiency proxy, is consistently a better predictor than Ethnic Orientation (a self-reported identity metric) in accounting for speakers who are most likely to produce English influenced vowels. While a distinction between child vs. adult language acquisition remains important, these results highlight linguistic dominance as an interacting factor in sociophonetic variation.
Keywords
- sociophonetics,
- sound change,
- language contact,
- Chinese - Yue,
- bilingualism
Disciplines
Publication Date
July, 2022
Editor
Robert Bayley, Dennis R. Preston and Xiaoshi Li
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Series
Studies in Language Variation
ISBN
9789027257727
DOI
10.1075/silv.28.05tse
Publisher Statement
The published version is copyright 2022 by John Benjamins Publishing Company and is available at: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027257727-silv.28.05tse
Citation Information
Holman Tse. "What can Cantonese heritage speakers tell us about age of acquisition, linguistic dominance, and sociophonetic variation?" Variation in Second and Heritage Languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives Vol. 28 (2022) p. 97 - 126 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/holman-tse/17/