Session Information
31 SES 07 C, Growing up with a Heritage Language in Germany: Effects on further language skills
Paper Session
Contribution
The current paper explores the potential interdependencies between the pronunciation skills of monolingual and multilingual learners of French as a foreign language (FL) and their proficiency in other linguistic domains (writing, general language proficiency) within this language. We will report on selected outcomes from the multidisciplinary panel project “Multilingual development: a longitudinal perspective” / “Mehrsprachigkeitsentwicklung im Zeitverlauf” (MEZ; Gogolin et al. 2017; Rahbari et al. 2018). A central goal is to reveal interrelations between linguistic data that allow determining the learners’ proficiency in all of their languages at different linguistic levels (oral and written production, general language proficiency) by considering a large array of linguistic and extra-linguistic materials.
Due to globalization and the growing number of migrants and refugees not only in central Europe, but worldwide, the learning of FLs at school more and more takes place in plurilingual settings. This situation, which is nowadays rather the normal case than the exception, constantly presents FL teachers with new pedagogical challenges. Although the necessity to develop respective teaching concepts and to intensify linguistic and educational research on the learning and teaching of FLs against the backdrop of migration-induced multilingualism has already been referred to shortly after the turn of the millennium by Hu (2003), until now only few studies on so-called third language (L3) acquisition have focused on the learning of FLs in learners who acquired more than one language during early childhood (Bonnet&Siemund 2018). This holds all the more true for the research on the acquisition of the pronunciation of FLs in multilingual learners who speak a so-called heritage language (HL; Valdés 2000; Montrul 2018) along with the environmental language, which is usually also the language of schooling (Gabriel et al. 2015; Llama&López-Morelos 2016).
The present contribution investigates a specific pronunciation feature, namely the so-called Voice Onset Time (VOT) of the voiced plosives /b d ɡ/ and their voiceless counterparts /p t k/, which is defined as the time that elapses between the burst of the plosive and the onset of the following vowel. The languages of our sample differ with respect to VOT in that German presents short values for /b d ɡ/ and long ones for /p t k/, while French is characterized by short values for /p t k/ and negative ones for /b d ɡ/. The fact that HLs considered here, i.e. Turkish and Russian, pattern with the FL suggests that the learners speaking Turkish or Russian along with German should be advantaged over monolingual German learners. Based on this assumption, we analyzed in a previous study the VOT patterns in French as a FL, produced by adolescent multilingual learners who speak either Russian or Turkish as a HL along with German (ages: 15–17; proficiency level A2/B1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages; 3-5 years of instruction). The materials produced by the experimental groups (each n=10) were compared with data gathered from 10 monolingually raised German learners. VOT production was analyzed in all of the participants’ languages. The general results showed that the bilinguals perform more target-like than the monolinguals for the voiceless plosives in L3 French, which we interpret in terms of positive transfer from the respective HLs (Dittmers et al. 2018). By contrast, no such positive transfer was found in the productions of the voiced plosives (Gabriel et al. 2018). The central goal of the present contribution is to answer the question as to whether the learners’ proficiency at the level of pronunciation (here exemplified by means of VOT production) is mirrored in, first, their abilities in written text production and, second, in their general language proficiency.
Method
We make use of data gathered within the scope of the abovementioned MEZ panel study (Gogolin et al. 2017), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The panel sample comprises materials collected from more than 2000 secondary school students who are either multilinguals with a Russian or Turkish HL background or were raised monolingually in German. As part of the MEZ study, linguistic oral and written in-depth data were gathered on a subsample of 200 students in a cross-sectional in-depth study (Rahbari et al. 2018). The present contribution combines in-depth data (VOT measurements, qualitative interview data) with survey data (written production task, C-tests, perception and attitude scales, socio-demographic data). To determine the relationship of the VOT measurements performed on our data with other linguistic levels, we applied an extreme cases approach (Jahnukainen 2009). The extreme cases, selected on the basis of the learners’ VOT productions, are divided into two major groups: The first group comprises the most target-like productions, the second group the less target-like ones. All in all, 11 outliers (4 German monolinguals, 4 Russian-German and 3 Turkish-German bilinguals) presented close-to-target productions for L3 French VOTs if compared to each of the correspondent language groups. Extremely negative deviations from the baseline (non-target-like productions) were found in the results of 3 German monolinguals and 2 Russian-German bilinguals. To further investigate the heterogeneity found in the data, we integrated the learners’ performance in a written production task and a C-test in French (indicator of general language proficiency). In order to measure the students’ performance in text production, the individual texts were coded with regard to pragmatic text content, verbal vocabulary, connectors, markers of academic language, and text length; all indicators were integrated into an overall measure (Knigge et al. 2015). The C-test in French included four different texts in which the missing second half of every third word had to be completed by the students. Test results, perception and attitude scales as well as socio-demographic data were included in a qualitative approach by positioning the respective data of the extreme cases in relation to the average tendency of the total sample.
Expected Outcomes
The analysis yielded controversial results: For the monolinguals, the results reveal that those learners who show target-like VOT productions achieved low scores in the C-test and low-to-average scores in the written production task. As opposed to this, the outliers with non-target-like VOT productions got low-to-high scores for the C-test and average-to-high scores for the written production task, and, therefore, outperformed the outliers with the target-like VOTs. The results for the bilinguals are more consistent in that the outliers with target-like VOT values present at least low-to-average results in the non-phonetic tasks while those with non-target-like VOTs achieved low scores. This outcome might be explained as follows: While phonological learning and the improvement of global linguistic proficiency proceed in separate ways in the monolinguals, these different competencies seem to be more intertwined in the bilingual learners. Moreover, based on first analyses performed on the qualitative extra-linguistic data (semi-focused interviews), we tentatively interpret the fact that more target-like VOT productions correlate with better results for both the written production task and the C-test only for the bilingual groups (but not for the monolinguals) as an effect of a higher general metalinguistic awareness in the bilinguals.
References
Bonnet, A.; Siemund, P. 2018. Multilingualism and foreign language education. A synthesis of linguistic and educational findings. In: Bonnet, A.; Siemund, P. Eds. Foreign Language Education in Multilingual Classrooms. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1-29. Dittmers, T.; Gabriel, C.; Krause, M.; Topal, S. 2018. The production of voiceless stops in multilingual learners of English, French, and Russian: Positive transfer from the heritage languages? In: Belz, M.; Mooshammer, C.; Fuchs, S.; Jannedy, S.; Rasskazova, O.; Żygis, M. Eds. Proceedings of PundP 13. Berlin: ZAS, 41-44. Gabriel, C.; Stahnke, J.; Thulke, J. 2015. Acquiring English and French speech rhythm in a multilingual classroom: A comparison with Asian Englishes. In: Gut, U.; Fuchs, R.; Wunder, E. Eds. Universal or diverse paths to English phonology? Berlin: De Gruyter, 135-163. Gabriel, C.; Krause, M.; Dittmers, T. 2018. VOT production in multilingual learners of French as a foreign language: Cross-linguistic influence from the heritage languages Russian and Turkish. Revue française de linguistique appliquée 23, 59-72. Gogolin, I.; Klinger, T.; Lagemann, M.; Schnoor, B. 2017. Indikation, Konzeption und Untersuchungsdesign des Projekts Mehrsprachigkeitsentwicklung im Zeitverlauf (MEZ), MEZ Arbeitspapier 1. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg. urn:nbn:de:0111-pedocs-148251 Hu, A. 2003. Schulischer Fremdsprachenunterricht und migrationsbedingte Mehrsprachigkeit. Tübingen: Narr. Jahnukainen, M. 2009. Extreme cases. In: Mills, A. Ed. Encyclopedia of case study research. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 378-379. Knigge, M.; Klinger, T., Schnoor, B.; Gogolin, I. 2015. Sprachperformanz im Deutschen unter Berücksichtigung der Performanz in der Herkunftssprache und Akkulturationseinstellungen. Eine Pilotstudie bei Jugendlichen und ihren Eltern mit russischem, türkischem und vietnamesischem Sprachhintergrund in Hamburg. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 18, 143-167. Llama, R.; López-Morelos, L. P. 2016. VOT production by Spanish heritage speakers in a trilingual context. International Journal of Multilingualism 13, 444-458. Montrul, S. 2018. Heritage language development. Connecting the dots. International Journal of Bilingualism 22, 530-546. Rahbari, S.; Gabriel, C.; Krause, M.; Siemund, P.; Bonnie, R.; Dittmers, T.; Feindt, K.; Lorenz, E.; Topal, S. 2018. Die linguistische Vertiefungsstudie des Projekts Mehrsprachigkeitsentwicklung im Zeitverlauf (MEZ), MEZ Arbeitspapiere 2. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg. urn:nbn:de:0111-pedocs-155694. Valdés, G. 2000. Teaching heritage languages. An introduction for Slavic-language-teaching professionals. In: Kagan, O.; Rifkin, B. Eds. Learning and teaching of Slavic languages and cultures. Toward the 21st century. Bloomington: Slavica, 375-403.
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