In the phonological integration of loanwords, the original structures of the donor language can either be adopted as innovations or adapted to the recipient language. This dissertation investigates how structural (i.e. phonetic, phonological, morpho-phonological) and non-structural (i.e. sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic) factors interact in determining which of these two integration strategies is preferred. Factors that affect the accuracy of the structure’s perception and production in the donor language as a result of its acquisition as a second language are given special consideration. The three studies in the dissertation examine how the same phonological structure from different donor languages is integrated into the same recipient language Turkish by two different types of initial borrowers: elite bilinguals in Turkey and heritage bilinguals in Sweden. The three investigated structures are word-final [l] after back vowels, long segments in word-final closed syllables, and word-initial onset clusters. The main hypothesis is that adoption will be more prevalent in heritage bilinguals than in elite bilinguals. Four necessary conditions for adoption are identified in the analysis. Firstly, the donor-language structure must have high perceptual salience. Secondly, the borrowers must have acquired the linguistic competence to produce a structure accurately. Thirdly, the borrowers must have sufficient sociolinguistic incentive to adopt a structure as an innovation. Fourthly, prosodic structures require higher incentive to be adopted than segments and clusters of segments. The main hypothesis is partially confirmed. The counterexamples involve either cases where the salience of the structure was high in the elite bilinguals’ borrowing but low in the heritage bilinguals’ borrowing, or cases where the structure’s degree of acquisition difficulty was low. Therefore, it is concluded that structural factors have the final say in the choice of integration strategy. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. </p>

This thesis presents four experimental studies, carried out at the Phonetic laboratory, Stockholm University, on infants’ ability to establish auditory-visual sound-meaning associations as a precursor of early word acquisition. Study I reports on the effect of linguistic variance on infants’ ability (3- to 20-months) to establish sound-meaning associations. The target-words embedded in phrases, based on an artificial language, were presented along with visually displayed puppets. Study II investigates the role of attribute type on infants’ ability (3- to 6-months) to establish sound-meaning associations. Two-word phrases, based on the same artificial language as in Study I, were presented along with visually displayed geometrical objects. The words implicitly referred to the color and shape of the objects. Study III examines infants’ ability (12- to 16-months) to predict phonetic information. The subjects were tested on their ability to associate Swedish whole words and disrupted words to familiar objects. Study IV investigates infants’ ability (6- to 8-months) to detect concurrence and synchrony in speech and non-speech. The infants were exposed to Swedish speech sounds presented with corresponding articulatory events, the sound of hand-clapping presented with synchronized hand-clapping movements, and the sound of hand-clapping presented with synchronized articulatory events. The results picture the subject as sensitive to distributional properties of auditory and visual information (Study I and II) but still unable to predict phonetic information, in the beginning of the second year of life (Study III). The infants’ conceptual behavior is outlined as a general-purpose perceptual process influenced by perceptual salience (Study IV). These results are related to a working hypothesis based on the Ecological theory of language acquisition (Lacerda &amp; Sundberg, 2006), and Lindblom (Lindblom, 1990; Lindblom &amp; Lacerda, 2006). / <p>För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se</p>

This thesis studies the characteristics of the acoustic signal in speech, especially in speech directed to infants and in infant vocal development, to gain insight on essential aspects of speech processing, speech production and communicative interaction in early language acquisition. Three sets of experimental studies are presented in this thesis. From a phonetic point of view they investigate the fundamental processes involved in first language acquisition. The first set (study 1.1 and study 1.2) investigated how linguistic structure in the speech signal can be derived and which strategy infants and adults use to process information depending on its presentation. The second set (study 2.1 and study 2.2) studied acoustic consequences of the anatomical geometry of the infant vocal tract and the development of sensory-motor control for articulatory strategies. The third set of studies (study 3.1 and study 3.2) explored the infant's interaction with the linguistic environment, specifically how vocal imitation and reinforcement may assist infants to converge towards adult-like speech. The first set of studies suggests that structure and quality of simultaneous sensory input impact on the establishment of initial linguistic representations. The second set indicates that the anatomy of the infant vocal tract does not constrain the production of adult-like speech sounds and that some degree of articulatory motor control is present from six months of age. The third set of studies suggests that the adult interprets and reinforces vocalizations produced by the infant in a developmentally-adjusted fashion that can guide the infant towards the sounds of the ambient language. The results are discussed in terms of essential aspects of early speech processing and speech production that can be accounted for by biological general purpose mechanisms in the language learning infant. / För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se

The present dissertation aims at analyzing the interplay between initial acoustic biases and language exposure during acquisition of language in the first year of life. This is a critical period in development because it is when phonetic categories are attuned to the native language. This goal is addressed by integrating the results from two developmental studies. The first study explores the presence of asymmetries in vowel perception in infants from 4 to 12 months of age, as a function of the acoustic salience and distributional properties in the test language. The second study investigates the previous contrasting results on vowel perception in 8-month-old infants growing in bilingual environments, and in particular and their relationship with task demands and the properties of the bilingual input. The results emerging from these studies point to two developmental trends. On one hand, asymmetries in vowel perception are modulated by acoustic biases before and during perceptual reorganization, and by distributional cues after perceptual reorganization. On the other hand, discrimination abilities of 8-month-old bilinguals parallel those of monolinguals when tested with an Anticipatory Eye Movement procedure, highlighting the importance of task demands in determining infants' performance. / L'objectiu d'aquesta tesis és analitzar la dinàmica que s'estableix entre els biaixos acústics i l'experiència amb el llenguatge durant el primer any de vida. Aquest és un període decisiu durant el qual les categories fonètiques s'ajusten a les propietats de la llengua materna. Aquest objectiu s'assoleix integrant els resultats de dos estudis. En el primer estudi s'explora la presència d'asimetries en la percepció de les vocals en bebès de 4 a 12 mesos d'edat, en funció de la saliència acústica i les propietats distribucionals de la llengua. El segon estudi investiga els resultats contradictoris obtinguts amb bebès de 8 mesos d'edat bilingües, i la seva relació amb les demandes de la tasca i les propietats de l'input bilingüe. Els resultats d'aquests estudis indiquen dos tendències al desenvolupament. Per una banda, que les asimetries en la percepció de les vocals són modulades per biaixos acústics abans i durant la reorganització perceptiva i per les propietats distribucionals després de la reorganització perceptiva; per l'altra banda, els resultats mostren que les habilitats de discriminació dels bilingües de 8 mesos d'edat són corresponents a les dels monolingües quan es fa servir un procediment d'anticipació de la mirada, posant en rellevància la importància de les demandes de la tasca en determinar el rendiment dels bebès.

En los estudios sobre la percepción de los sonidos del habla es fácil encontrar diversos ejemplos que muestran que algunas características de la señal resultan más notorias que otras. En general estas diferencias no han sido incorporadas en los modelos de reconocimiento de palabras. En este trabajo se muestran evidencias de los sesgos en la percepción de vocales en adultos utilizando la técnica de los potenciales evocados. Independientemente de la lengua materna de los participantes, el fonema /i/ resulta mejor discriminado (i.e. respecto a /e/). Además se estudia el papel que la notoriedad de los estímulos juega en la representación y el acceso léxico. El juicio léxico realizado sobre no-palabras se ve acelerado cuando estas contienen como vocal crítica la /i/ (vs. /e/). / In speech perception literature, it is easy to find examples of some characteristics in the signal hich are more salient than others. However, such differences have generally not been incorporated in word recognition models. In this dissertation, evidence of adult vowel perception biases is shown by means of the event-related potentials (ERP) technique. We show that, regardless of the participants' native language, the /i/ phoneme is recognised more easily (relative to the /e/ phoneme). In addition the role that salience plays in lexica representation and access is studied. We find that lexical judgement in non-words is speeded when these contain /i/ as a critical vowel (vs. /e/).