Bilingual Acquisition of Intonation

Ulrike Gut

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This book investigates the acquisition of intonation by German/English bilingual children. Intonation is analysed both auditorily ...

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This book investigates the acquisition of intonation by German/English bilingual children. Intonation is analysed both auditorily and instrumentally, and the transcription system of the British Tradition and the ToBI system in the autosegmental-metrical approach of intonation analysis are employed. Based on longitudinal data of three children comprising the ages 2 years 1 month (2;1) to 5 years 6 months (5;6), the acquisition sequence for the phonological rules and phonetic production of nucleus placement, pitch and intonational phrasing is sketched. Some phonological functions of nucleus placement and pitch such as the marking of contrast or the type of speech act are mastered as early as 2;1 whilst intonational phrasing is first used phonologically at 4;6. Mastery of the phonetic production of all three intonational systems is acquired much later, and acquisition is not completed yet at 5;6. In general, interindividual differences and a clear separation of both language systems are apparent in all children, with a considerable time lag in the acquisition of the weaker language. It is concluded that both transcription systems for intonation need to be modified for the analysis of child speech and that the autosegmental-metrical approach with its distinction between the phonological and the phonetic level proves a more flexible and descriptively valuable tool.