Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:53:37.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Usage-Based Approaches to Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology

from Part I - Approaches to Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Esther L. Brown
Edited by
Mark Amengual
Mark Amengual
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Get access

Summary

This chapter introduces chief postulates common to usage-based (UB) approaches to language. The UB approach maintains that speakers’ experiences with language shape how language is stored. Experiences with specific words and word combinations in particular linguistic, discursive, and social contexts accrue in memory and subsequently contribute to patterns of variability evident in speech productions. Usage-based approaches regularly consider independent effects on lexical representations of decontextualized prior probabilities (e.g. phone/word/bigram frequencies, type frequencies), and, increasingly, contextually informed counts (e.g. lexical items’ cumulative exposure to conditioning effects of the production contexts, phone/word probabilities) are considered. This chapter offers an overview of studies exploring the connection between usage patterns and bilingual sound systems as well as studies exploring evidence of interlingual influence arising from bilingual lexical storage (schematic ties in memory). The chapter suggests potential avenues for future UB research into bilingual phonetics and phonology.

Keywords

exemplar modellexical representationcognatesfrequencyanalogycategorizationlanguage experiencelanguage organizationbilingualismlanguage contactusage-based phoneticsusage-based phonology
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology , pp. 44 - 64
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamou, E., Feltgen, Q., & Padure, C. (2021). A unified approach to the study of language contact: Cross-language priming and change in adjective/noun order. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(6), 1635–1654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B. (2020a). Against stored abstractions: A radical exemplar model of language acquisition. First Language, 40(5–6), 509–559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B. (2020b). Abstractions made of exemplars or “You’re all right, and I’ve changed my mind”: Response to commentators. First Language, 40(5–6), 640–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amengual, M. (2012). Interlingual influence in bilingual speech: Cognate status effect in a continuum of bilingualism. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(3), 517–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amengual, M. (2016). Cross-linguistic influence in the bilingual mental lexicon: Evidence of cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of a vowel contrast. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 617. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00617.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baayen, R. H., Beaman, K. V., & Ramscar, M. (2021). Deconfounding the effects of competition and attrition on dialect across the lifespan: A panel study investigation of Swabian. In Beaman, K. V. & Buchstaller, I., eds., Language Variation and Language Change Across the Lifespan. New York: Routledge, pp. 235–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backus, A. (2013). A usage-based approach to borrowability. In Zenner, E. & Kristiansen, G., eds., New Perspectives on Lexical Borrowing: Onomasiological, Methodological and Phraseological Innovations. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backus, A. (2021). Usage-based approaches. In Adamou, E. & Matras, Y., eds., The Routledge Handbook of Language Contact. New York: Routledge, pp. 110–126.Google Scholar
Barlow, M. & Kemmer, S. (2000). Usage-Based Models of Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Barnes, S. (2015). Perceptual salience and social categorization of contact features in Asturian Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 8(2), 213–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, S. (2019). The role of social cues in the perception of final vowel contrasts in Asturian Spanish. In Chappell, W., ed., Recent Advances in the Study of Spanish Sociophonetic Perception. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 16–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckner, C., Blythe, R., Bybee, J., et al. (2009). Language is a complex adaptive system: Position paper. Language Learning, 59, 1–26.Google Scholar
Bérces, K. B. & Honeybone, P. (2020). Representation-based models in the current landscape of phonological theory. Acta Linguistica Academica, 67(1), 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. K. & Copple, M. T. (2018). Constructing two phonological systems: A phonetic analysis of /p/, /t/, /k/ among early Spanish-English bilingual speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 22(1), 51–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. L. (2015). The role of discourse context frequency in phonological variation: A usage-based approach to bilingual speech production. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(4), 387–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. L. (2018). Cumulative exposure to phonetic reducing environments marks the lexicon: Spanish /d-/ words spoken in isolation. In Smith, K. A. & Nordquist, D., eds., Functionalist and Usage-Based Approaches to the Study of Language: In Honor of Joan L. Bybee. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 127–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. L. & Amengual, M. (2015). Fine-grained and probabilistic cross-linguistic influence in the pronunciation of cognates: Evidence from corpus-based spontaneous conversation and experimentally elicited data. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 8(1), 59–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. L. & Harper, D. (2009). Phonological evidence of interlingual exemplar connections. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 2(2), 257–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E. L., Raymond, W. D., Brown, E. K., & File-Muriel, R. J. (2021). Lexically specific accumulation in memory of word and segment speech rates. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 17(3), 625–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullock, B. E. & Gerfen, C. (2004). Phonological convergence in a contracting language variety. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 95–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (1999). Usage-based phonology. In Darnell, M., Moravcsik, E., Newmeyer, F., Noonan, M., & Wheatly, K., eds., Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 212–242.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2001). Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (2002a). Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change, 14(3), 261–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (2002b). Sequentiality as the basis of constituent structure. In Givón, T. & Mall, B. F., eds., The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 109–135.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2006). Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2010). Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (2012). Patterns of lexical diffusion and articulatory motivations for sound change. In Josep-Sole, M. & Recasens, D., eds., The Initiation of Sound Change: Perception, Production, and Social Factors. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 211–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J., Perkins, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carrasco-Ortiz, H., Amengual, M., & Gries, S. T. (2021). Cross-language effects of phonological and orthographic similarity in cognate word recognition: The role of language dominance. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 11(3), 389–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, A. C. & Renwick, M. E. (2021). Embracing multidimensionality in phonological analysis. Linguistic Review, 38(1), 101–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vogelaer, G. & Seiler, G. (2012). The dialect laboratory: Introductory remarks. In The Dialect Laboratory: Dialects as a Testing Ground for Theories of Language Change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Divjak, D. (2017). The role of lexical frequency in the acceptability of syntactic variants: Evidence from that‐clauses in Polish. Cognitive Science, 41(2), 354–382.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Docherty, G. J. & Foulkes, P. (2014). An evaluation of usage-based approaches to the modelling of sociophonetic variability. Lingua, 142, 42–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drager, K. & Kirtley, M. J. (2016). Awareness, salience, and stereotypes in exemplar-based models of speech production and perception. In Babel, A., ed., Awareness and Control in Sociolinguistic Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E. & Sagarra, N. (2007). The effect of exposure on syntactic parsing in Spanish-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10(1), 101–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C. (2012). What can we count in language, and what counts in language acquisition, cognition, and use? In Gries, S. Th. & Divjak, D., eds., Frequency Effects in Language Learning and Processing, Volume 1. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 7–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1987). The production of “new” and “similar” phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15(1), 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, J. (2017). The dynamic interaction between lexical and contextual frequency: A case study of (ING). Language Variation and Change, 29(2), 129–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gahl, S. (2008). Time and thyme are not homophones: The effect of lemma frequency on word durations in spontaneous speech. Language, 84(3), 474–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gampe, A., Quick, A. E., & Daum, M. M. (2021). Does linguistic similarity affect early simultaneous bilingual language acquisition? Journal of Language Contact, 13(3), 482–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaskins, D. (2020). Input-output effects in the bilingual first language acquisition of English and Polish: A usage-based perspective. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 10(4), 471–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Givón, T. (1998). The functional approach to grammar. In Tomasello, M., ed., The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 41–66.Google Scholar
Gradoville, M., Waltermire, M., & Long, A. (2021). Cognate similarity and intervocalic /d/ production in Riverense Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(3), 727–746.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, J. (1994). Ritualization and the development of language. In Pagliuca, W., ed., Perspectives on Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakimov, N. (2021). Lexical frequency and frequency of co-occurrence predict the use of embedded-language islands in bilingual speech: Adjective-modified nominal constituents in Russian-German code-mixing. Journal of Language Contact, 13(3), 501–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakimov, N. & Backus, A. (2021). Usage-based contact linguistics: Effects of frequency and similarity in language contact. Journal of Language Contact, 13(3), 459–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, M., Miglio, V., & Gries, S. Th. (2015). Mexican and Chicano Spanish prosody: Differences related to information structure. In Levis, J., Mohammed, R., Qian, M., & Zhou, Z., eds., Proceedings of the 6th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference. Ames: Iowa State University, pp. 38–48.Google Scholar
Hay, J. & Foulkes, P. (2016). The evolution of medial /t/ over real and remembered time. Language, 92(2), 298–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinskens, F. (2011). Koineization in the present-day Dutch dialect landscape: Postvocalic /r/ and more. Taal en Tongval, 63(1), 99–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopper, P. J. (1987). Emergent grammar. Berkeley Linguistics Society, 13, 139–157.Google Scholar
Hopper, P. & Traugott, E. (1993). Grammaticalization. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jaeger, T. F. & Weatherholtz, K. (2016). What the heck is salience? How predictive language processing contributes to sociolinguistic perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1115. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, K. (1997). Speech perception without speaker normalization: An exemplar model. In Johnson, K. & Mullenix, J. W., eds., Talker Variability in Speech Processing. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 145–165.Google Scholar
Johnson, K. (2007). Decisions and mechanisms in exemplar-based phonology. In Solé, M., Beddor, P., & Ohala, M., eds., Experimental Approaches to Phonology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanwit, M. & Terán, V. (2020). Ideas buenas o buenas ideas: Phonological, semantic, and frequency effects on variable adjective ordering in Rioplatense Spanish. Languages, 5(4), 65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemmer, S. & Barlow, M. (2000). Introduction: A usage-based conception of language. In Kemmer, S. & Barlow, M., eds., Usage-Based Models of Language. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 7–28.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Bogulski, C. A., & McClain, R. (2012). Psycholinguistic perspectives on second language learning and bilingualism: The course and consequence of cross-language competition. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2(1), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R. (2016). Entrenchment in cognitive grammar. In Schmid, H. J., ed., Entrenchment and the Psychology of Language Learning: How We Reorganize and Adapt Linguistic Knowledge. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 39–56.Google Scholar
Levy, H. & Hanulíková, A. (2019). Variation in children’s vowel production: Effects of language exposure and lexical frequency. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 10(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Y., Yao, Y., & Luo, J. (2021). Phonetic accommodation of tone: Reversing a tone merger-in-progress via imitation. Journal of Phonetics, 87, 101060.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López-Beltrán, P. & Carlson, M. T. (2020). How usage-based approaches to language can contribute to a unified theory of heritage grammars. Linguistics Vanguard, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2019-0072.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mora, J. C. & Nadeu, M. (2009). Experience effects on the categorization of a native vowel contrast in highly proficient Catalan-Spanish bilinguals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125, 2775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mompean, J. A., Fregier, A., & Valenzuela, J. (2020). Iconicity and systematicity in phonaesthemes: A cross-linguistic study. Cognitive Linguistics, 31(3), 515–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morford, J. P., Occhino, C., Zirnstein, M., et al. (2019). What is the source of bilingual cross-language activation in deaf bilinguals? Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 24(4), 356–365.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Onysko, A. (2019). Reconceptualizing language contact phenomena as cognitive processes. In Zenner, E., Backus, A., & Winter-Froemel, E., eds., Cognitive Contact Linguistics: Placing Usage, Meaning and Mind at the Core of Contact-Induced Variation and Change. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 23–50.Google Scholar
Piccardi, D. (2019). Bilingual frequency in a favorable context (BFFC) in the Italian dialectal area: Theoretical preliminaries to the analysis of geminate lateral retroflexion and voiceless plosives aspiration in Antona (MS). In Piccardi, D., Ardolino, F., & Calamai, S., eds, Gli archivi sonori al crocevia tra scienze fonetiche, informatica umanistica e patrimonio digitale. Naples: Associazione Italiana Scienze della Voce, pp. 329–351.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. B. (2001). Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition, and contrast. In Bybee, J. & Hopper, P., eds., Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 137–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. B. (2002). Word-specific phonetics. In Gussenhoven, C. & Warner, N., eds., Laboratory Phonology, Vol. 7. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 101–140.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. B. (2003). Probabilistic phonology: Discrimination and robustness. In Rens, B., Hay, J., & Jannedy, S., eds., Probabilistic Linguistics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 177–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S. (2020). A variationist perspective on language contact. In Adamou, E. & Matras, Y., eds., The Routledge Handbook of Language Contact. London: Routledge, pp. 46–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, M. T., Carlson, M., & Reitter, D. (2018). Integrated, not isolated: Defining typological proximity in an integrated multilingual architecture. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 2212. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quick, A. E. & Verschik, A. (2019). Usage-based contact linguistics: An introduction to the special issue. Applied Linguistics Review, 12, 165–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raymond, W. D., Brown, E. L., & Healy, A. F. (2016). Cumulative context effects and variant lexical representations: Word use and English final t/d deletion. Language Variation and Change, 28(2), 175–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmid, H. J. (2016). Entrenchment and the Psychology of Language Learning: How We Reorganize and Adapt Linguistic Knowledge. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Shenk, P. S. (2006). The interactional and syntactic importance of prosody in Spanish-English bilingual discourse. International Journal of Bilingualism, 10(2), 179–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherkina, M. (2003). The cognate facilitation effect in bilingual speech processing. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 21, 135–151.Google Scholar
Simonet, M. (2014). Phonetic consequences of dynamic cross-linguistic interference in proficient bilinguals. Journal of Phonetics, 43, 26–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomason, S. G. & Kaufman, T. (1988). Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, R. & Ferreira, F. (2000). Lexical frequency and voiced labiodental-bilabial variation in new Mexican Spanish. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 19(2), 1–17.Google Scholar
Van Coetsem, F. (1988). Loan Phonology and the Two Transfer Types in Language Contact. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waltermire, M. & Gradoville, M. (2020). The interaction of social factors in the acoustically gradient realization of intervocalic /d/ in Border Uruguayan Spanish. In Rao, R., ed., Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 263–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wasserscheidt, P. (2021). A usage-based approach to “language” in language contact. Applied Linguistics Review, 12(2), 279–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinreich, U. (1952). Languages in Contact. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Winford, D. (2003). An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley–Blackwell.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×