The Early Phonological Development of A Farsi-English Bilingual Child

Volume 6 Number 3 September 2002,
Farsi-English 255 –child

bilingual 269 255
The early phonological development of a

Farsi-English bilingual child
Mohammad Hossein Keshavarz1 & David Ingram 2
1 Teacher Training University, Tehran;
2 Arizona State University
Abstract Key words

This article addresses the issue of whether bilingual children begin phono- Farsi and
logical acquisition with one phonological system or two. F ive hypotheses
English
are suggested for the possible structure of the bilingual child’s phonological
system. Analyses of data from a longitudinal study of a Farsi-English bilingual
infant, Arsham, supported the hypothesis that the child had acquired two sepa- infant
rate phonologies with mutual influence; that is, he made occasional use of bilingualism
phonological features of Farsi in English words and vice-versa. It is suggested
that this was due to the pattern of exposure to the two languages, and that phonological
other children may show a different pattern, depending on their exposure to acquisition
the two languages and the role of language dominance.
1 Introduction
One of the most widely cited concepts in bilingual first language acquisition is the issue
of whet her bilingua l children develop on e mixed o r t wo indepen den t linguistic
systems (cf. review in Bhatia & R itchie, 1999). M ost studies, however, have dealt with
lexical development in young bilingual children, and the issue of whether young bilingual
children acquire one versus two phonological systems has received less attention. Approaching
the question as single versus dual phonological systems raises both empirical and theo-
retical questions. Empirically, the determination of whether there is a single phonology
or two is complicated by analytic questions concerning how different the two phonologies
need to be. Theoretically, the claims that have been made for each point of view need to
be more clearly delineated. As argued in Paradis & G enesee (1996) for grammatical
development, there are multiple hypotheses for the phonological systems of bilingual
children. It may be that specific hypotheses may more accurately capture the phonological
systems of some bilingual children than other hypotheses. H ere five possible hypotheses
are suggested and examined in relation to the phonological acquisition of a bilingual
English-Farsi child, Arsham. It is concluded that the circumstances in which Arsham
acquired English and Farsi led him to acquire separate phonological systems with some
influence of each upon the other. This may have resulted from the particular linguistic
environment in which Arsham acquired the two languages; children in different bilingual
environments may show other patterns of phonological acquisition.
Address for correspondence

David Ingram, Department of Speech and Hearing Science, P.O. Box 870102, Arizona State University, Tempe,
AZ 85287- 0102; e-mail: < David.Ingram@asu.edu >; or Mohammad Hossein Keshavarz, P.O. Box 15815 - 1649,
Tehran, Iran; e-mail: < mhkeshavarz@yahoo.com >. The International Journal of Bilingualism
Downloaded from ijb.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
256 M. H. Keshavarz and D. Ingram
2 Five hypotheses on bilingual phonological

acquisition
Some scholars maintain that bilingual children begin with a single phonological system,
and then later separate the two (cf. Leopold, 1949/ 1970; Schnitzer & K rasinski, 1994;
Vogel, 1975). Bhatia & R itchie (1999) refer to this point of view as the unitary model.
Results from the early case studies indicated that bilingual children use a small number
of speech sounds that are shared by words from both languages. For example, H ildegard
Leopold (Leopold, 1949/ 1970) used a consonantal system for both English and G erman
words consisting of six consonants, [m, n, b, d, h, w]. Without further analysis, data like
these can lead to the conclusion that children have a single phonology when the same
segmental inventories are used for words from both languages that are being acquired.
While the present study treats the unitary model as a single hypothesis, its exact
claims may vary. One important question to ask concerns the passive linguistic knowledge
of children who are claimed to have a single linguistic system, based on their language
production. D o such children believe that all the input is from a single language, or are
they aware that two languages exist? It is not a required property of the unitary model
for the child to believe that only one language is involved. If children recognize that two
languages exist, they could still develop a single phonological system by selecting to
acquire first the phonology of one of the languages, by selecting the unmarked sounds
of both languages, or by acquiring the shared phonemes of the two languages. Any of these
possible scenarios would result in a single phonological system. All three of these possi-
bilities, for example, could be possible explanations for H ildegard ’s early consonantal
inventory given above.
The alternative to the unitary model is the dual hypothesis model, a more recent
perspective that claims children acquire separate phonologies from the onset of word
acquisition (Bhatia & R itchie, 1999; D euchar & Clark, 1996). The empirical evidence for
the dual hypothesis model comes from phonological analyses showing bilingual children
using divergent phonological patterns for the vocabulary of each language. To date, studies
showing this have focused in particular on syllable structures, though some segmental
differences are also noted (e.g., Ingram, 1981/ 82; Paradis, 1996).
The dual hypothesis model can be broken down into four hypotheses, based on the
discussion in Paradis & G enesee (1996) on grammatical acquisition. One possibility is
that bilingual children acquire the two languages with separate phonologies much the
same as monolingual learners (cf. Schnitzer & K rasinki, 1996). This autonomy hypothesis
predicts that bilingual children will show the same order of acquisition and phonological
error patterns as monolingual children for each language. A second possibility is that
children may separate the two phonological systems, but have some features of each
language influence the other one; that is, interdependence (Johnson & Lancaster, 1998).
Paradis and G enesee identify three possible kinds of interdependence: transfer, acceler-
ation, and delay. Transfer involves a unidirectional influence, where features of the dominant
language show up in the other language. A cceleration would occur in cases where a phono-
logical property (e.g., a sound or feature) that is acquired earlier in one language might
subsequently be acquired earlier than expected in the other language (H olm & D odd,
The International Journal of Bilingualism
Farsi-English bilingual child 257
1998). Delay would result if children show slower development in one or both of their
languages, relative to monolingual children.
It is concluded that there are at least five possible ways that bilingual children could
go about acquiring the phonologies of two languages. It is then necessary to determine
that they are empirically testable; that is, to identify a set of distinct properties that each
would predict to be found in the bilingual child’s phonological system. This will be done
here by examining the two languages that are being acquired in the present case study,
namely, Farsi and English, and returning to the empirical predictions that each of these
hypotheses make regarding these languages.
3 A comparison of Farsi and English

Farsi (also known as Persian) is a member of the Western Iranian branch of the Indo-
Iranian family within the Indo-European language family. It is the principal language of
Iran. The dialect acquired by the child in the present study is the one spoken in Tehran
(cf. Obelensky, Panah, & N ouri, 1963). The child in the present study acquired English
from his father, a fluent speaker of a dialect that approximates American English. H e
has conducted graduate studies in the U nited States and G reat Britain and has taught English
and linguistics for over 20 years. Table 1 presents a general summary of the prosodic and
segmental properties of the two languages.
Table 1
A com parison of English and Farsi
Stress:
English: variable, though highly trochaic in early child language
Farsi: predominantly final
Syllables:
English: wide range of clusters in onsets and codas; e.g., (s)(p,t,k)(r,l,w,j) onsets;
Farsi: (C)V(C)(C)
Consonants: stops affricates nasals fricatives approximants

English b,d,g,p,t,k tS,dZ m ,n,Î f,T,s,S,h, v,D,z,Z y,w,r,l
Farsi b,d,g,p,t,k,q,? tS,dZ m ,n f,s,S,x,å,h, v,z,Z,æ y,w,r,l
Vow els: front central back
English: i,I,ei,E,{,V,@ @,ö u,U,ow,O,A
Farsi: i,e,{ u,o,A
English and Farsi differ in their prosodic properties. Concerning stress, English has
variable stress with the predominant stress pattern in early child English being trochaic;
that is, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one (Allen & H awkins, 1980). Word
stress in Farsi, on the other hand, is predominantly on the final syllable (cf. Ferguson, 1957;
Shiri, 1987; Yarmohammadi, 1996). These differences in stress provide an important area
to explore with respect to the hypotheses presented earlier.
Farsi and English also differ in their syllable structures. English has a relatively
complex set of possible consonant clusters in both onset and coda positions. Farsi
syllables, on the other hand, are much more restricted, with just six possible syllables: V,
VC, CV, CVC, VCC, CVCC. Syllable structure will be a less useful way to test the hypotheses
since the Farsi forms are a subset of the English possibilities. As shown in Ingram (1981/ 82)
and Paradis (1996), however, it is also possible to examine the distribution of the sylla-
bles that occur as well as their actual form. Support for the dual hypothesis will exist if
it is found that the child’s syllable structures for English and Farsi words have a high
correlation with the syllable structures of the English and Farsi words being acquired
respectively, but a low correlation with each other.
A comparison of the Farsi and English consonant systems indicates that the two
languages are relatively similar in terms of their phoneme inventories, sharing 21 conso-
nantal phonemes. Farsi has all the English stops and affricates, plus /q/ and /?/. English
has one more nasal consonant, the /Î/ which is restricted to coda position. There are other
differences in the fricative systems. There are seven fricatives found in both languages /f/ ,
/s/ , /S / , /h/ , /v/ , /z/ , and /Z / . English also has the two interdentals / q / and /D/ , while Farsi
has the velar and uvular series /x/, /å / . Lastly, both languages phonemically have the same
liquids and glides, that is, /j/ , /w/ , /r/ , /l/ . It should be noted, however, that the /r / s are
not phonetically the same. The Farsi /r/ is a trill rather than a liquid approximant as in
English. This phonetic difference could lead to differences in the acquisition of the two.
As is the case with syllables, it is possible to examine the distribution of consonants
in the vocabulary from each language. Results from cross-linguistic research (e.g., Pye, Ingram,
& List, 1987; Vihman, 1996) indicate that children speaking different languages do not
acquire sounds in the same sequences. For example, children acquiring Quiche (a Guatemalan
language) use both /l/ and /tS/ as two of their earliest and most frequent consonants,
while these are later acquisitions for English children.
The vowel systems of English and Farsi differ in size and phonetic quality. English has
several vowel phonemes, including tense-lax pairs and diphthongs. G eneral American
English, for example, has 13 vowel and 3 diphthong phonemes, based on G iegerich (1992),
and several of the vowel phonemes are phonetically diphthongs, for example, /e/ [eI]. Farsi
has a small inventory of only six vowels, three front (/i/ , /e/, /{/ ) and three back ( /u/ , /o/ ,
/A/ ), without the English tense-lax difference (cf. H aghshenas, 1977; Samare, 1985;
Yarmohammadi, 1985, 1996). Also, the two mid vowels in Farsi are not diphthongs as they
are in English. Since the Farsi vowels are a subset of the English vowels, vowel interference
of Farsi in English words will not be directly observable. The occurrence of nondiphthongal
mid vowels in English words could be the result of interference, but it could also be the
result of the child using a less marked vowel for a more marked one. There is the possibility,
however, that English vowels not found in Farsi may be used in Farsi words.
A last aspect to consider in testing the hypotheses is the substitution patterns for the
two languages. Cross-linguistic research has demonstrated that different languages show
different substitutions. As early as 1905, for example, G heorghov noted that substitu-
tions for /r/ differ in English and Bulgarian, with English substituting [w], and Bulgarian
[l ] (G heorghov, 1905). Similar results have been reported more recently for Italian in
Leonard & Bortolini (1991), where the children substituted [l] for /r/ and [n] for /l/ ,
patterns not typical of English children. The reason for these differences resides in the nature
of the individual languages. The child will seek a sound within the language that shares
features with the target sound.
Besides these phonological aspects, there are two further areas of language acqui-
sition that can be brought to bear on the issue of a single phonology versus two. The first
is the nature of the child’s vocabulary. It has been claimed that children begin acquisition
with a single vocabulary, selecting words from each language, each with its own distinct
meaning. For example, the word for “cat” might be from language A and the one for
“dog” from language B (cf. Volterra & Taeschner, 1978). This claim has been strongly
challenged by numerous studies since its first appearance (cf. Bergman, 1976; D eH ouwer,
1990; G enesee, 1989; G enesee, N icoladis, & Paradis, 1995; Lanza, 1997; M eisel, 1989;
Padilla & Liebman, 1975; Quay, 1995; Vihman, 1985). What is the relationship between
the child’s vocabularies and the child’s phonological acquisition? It is proposed here that
the relationship between one versus two vocabularies and one versus two phonologies is
a complex one, and that the nature of the former does not necessarily determine the latter.
It is hypothetically possible that children could have two phonological systems but acquire
a single vocabulary, and vice versa. The present study presents some preliminary data on
this relationship, but defers a detailed discussion for a future study.
A second aspect concerns rate of acquisition. D espite correlations between age and
linguistic milestones, it is generally agreed that children are highly variable in their rate
of acquisition. In bilingual acquisition, the idea that bilingual children will learn language
more slowly has been widely discussed, and by and large dismissed (cf. Hakuta, 1986). More
interesting is the issue of whether the bilingual child’s phonological system is of comparable
complexity to the monolingual child’s, relative to vocabulary size. The present study will
explore the rate issue in this regard, rather than in relation to chronological age.
4 Predictions based on the five hypotheses

It is now possible to compare the phonological patterns of English and Farsi to identify
critical places where each of the five hypotheses presented can be empirically tested. H ere
is each hypothesis summarized with predicted patterns:
H1 Unitary M odel: child selects either English or Farsi, or shared features of both and
applies them in the same fashion to both English and Farsi words; recent research
suggests that this will not be the case;
H2 A utonomy: stress, syllable structure, and segmental inventories differ for both
languages, with no interference; frequency of occurrence of syllable shapes that are
otherwise the same in both languages, for example, CV, CVC, differ and correlate
with input vocabulary of each language;
H3 T ransfer: the child’s phonologies show properties similar to the previous hypothesis,
but with some interference from one language on the other, for example, consonants
and / or vowels unique to one language being used in the other;
H4 A cceleration: the child’s phonologies show properties similar to H 2, but the order
of acquisition of one or more phonological properties in one or both languages will
not be typical of that of monolingual children. This hypothesis may be hard to test
due to the individual variation found in language acquisition. Sounds acquired
earlier than anticipated, however, will need to be ones also found in the other
language. Any of the shared fricatives, affricates, and liquids in Table 3 are possible
candidates. The shared stops and nasals are not possible candidates since they are
typically among the earliest acquired sounds cross-linguistically;
H5. Delay: to best test this hypothesis, the child would need to show autonomous
development (H 2) so that his or her inventories can be compared to those of mono-
lingual children. The comparison should show similar inventories, except that the
bilingual child’s inventories and number of syllable types are fewer than those found
in monolingual children at a typical stage of development. In the present study, the
English data are compared to the inventories found for English speaking children
reported in Ingram (1981) and Stoel-G ammon (1985) for the acquisition of the
first 50 words; the Farsi data are compared to results found in Fahim (1994) and Naderi
& Seifnaraghi (1992).
A longitudinal study was conducted of the phonological development of a Farsi-
English bilingual child from his first words at eight-months of age to 20 months when he
had acquired vocabularies consisting of over one hundred words from each language.
The data are examined with regard to the five hypotheses outlined, analyzing the distinc-
tive properties of the two languages identified above. Results are also presented on
vocabulary development and rate of acquisition as well as a comparison of the child’s acqui-
sition patterns with those of monolingual children.
5 Method
5.1
The subject
The subject is Arsham, the first author’s second child. Arsham was born in G reat Britain
where his father was working on his Ph.D. research in Applied Linguistics. Both parents
are native speakers of Farsi, and fluent speakers of English. A bilingual policy was initi-
ated at the time of Arsham’s birth so that he would acquire English and Farsi simultaneously.
It was decided that the mother would only speak to Arsham in Farsi, and the father would
only speak to him in English. M oreover, the parents spoke to each other only in the
assigned languages in the presence of the child to reinforce the one-parent one-language
strategy. The policy was followed cooperatively and strictly by the parents.
While the objective was to provide a balanced input in both languages, this was not
always possible. D uring the earlier months of the project (8 – 14 months) Arsham received
greater input in Farsi as he was mainly looked after and talked to by his mother. H owever,
from 15 to 24, before the family returned to Iran, Arsham had greater exposure to English
since his father spent more time with the child and TV became a great source of input.
M oreover, the family had more contact with English-speaking friends. His varying degrees
of exposure to the two languages are reflected in his vocabulary acquisition.
5.2
Data collection
The father collected data on Arsham ’s language acquisition fro m his first words at
eight-months of age until Arsham was 20 months old. D ata consisted of three sources:
(a ) regular diary observations (b) periodic audio recording, and (c) occasional informal
experiments on comprehension and production. The father, a trained phonetician, made

broad phonetic transcription of utterances on site. D etails of the context in which such
utterances were produced were also added. When the father was not present, the mother
would tape-record Arsham’s utterances. The father subsequently transcribed the audio
recordings in such cases. Some audio recording was also done when the father was present.
5.3
Analyses
All words were entered into computer files by language and month, from 8 to 20 months
of age. Two main categories of words were identified: (a ) new words, which occurred for
the first time in any month, and (b) old words, those that were entered again in subsequent
months. Each word was entered on a single line with the following information (using the
terminology in Ingram, 1981). For English words, there was the word in orthographic
English, that is, the lexical type, then the phonemic form of the word, and lastly the child’s
pronunciation; that is, the phonetic type. For example, English like /laik/ [la:]. The Farsi
entries also included an English gloss, for example, the Farsi word for “what” was entered
as ‘what /tSi/ [di]’.
The words for each month for each language were subsequently analyzed for their
phonological properties. For the prosodic analysis, the stress patterns for each language
were determined from the initial transcriptions. Syllable structure was examined by distin-
guishing the frequencies of syllable types in each sample. Syllable structures were divided
into the following types: monosyllables, reduplicated monosyllables, disyllables (non redu-
plicated forms), and trisyllables.
The analysis of phonological inventories examined word initial consonants, word
final consonants, and vowels. M atches and substitution analyses were conducted as
explained in Ingram (1989). For each sample, a criterion of frequency was set based on
sample size. A phoneme was included in the analysis if the child attempted it at the
minimum frequency. For example, if the frequency criterion was three, word initial /p - /
was only included if the child attempted at least three words with it. A match occurred
when Arsham was correct over 50% of the attempts. If a phoneme was not a match, it
was entered as a substitution if a consistent substitute occurred in over 50% of the errors,
for example, [b] for /p/ two out of three times.
6 Results and Discussion

6.1
Vocabulary
Arsham’s lexical development in English and Farsi is reported in Table 2, which presents
Arsham’s cumulative (i.e., total) word types from 10 to 20 months of age. While Arsham
was clearly learning two languages over the period of the study, the word acquisition in
the two languages was not uniform. H is first words were from Farsi, and Farsi acquisition
overall outpaced English acquisition through 15 months of age as previously mentioned.
This was likely due to the fact that Arsham’s input was initially in Farsi as he was looked
after and talked to mainly by his mother. A shift in focus from Farsi to English began
from 15 months onward when English words began to be acquired at a higher rate than
Farsi words.
While not a primary focus of the study, it is noteworthy that Arsham’s lexical develop-
ment took place at a faster pace than found in monolingual English children. For example,
it is frequently reported that English-speaking children acquire their 50th word in produc-
tion around 18 months (cf. review in Ingram, 1989). Arsham had nearly four times this
number of words by this age. A higher rate of word acquisition has been reported for Spanish
in Jackson-M aldonado, Thal, M archman, Bates, & G utierrez-Clellen (1993) of 127 words
at 18 months, but this is still lower than Arsham’s 191 combined words. Thus Arsham’s
acquisition is one more example that a bilingual child’s acquisition is not necessarily going
to be slower than a monolingual child’s.
Table 2
Arsham ’s cum ulative English and Farsi word types
A g e in M o n th s
Lan guage 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
English 1 4 9 12 25 55 84 106 129 162

Farsi 6 10 15 20 25 29 46 66 85 100 116
6.2
Prosody
The word shapes of Arsham’s English and Farsi words were measured by calculating the
proportion of monosyllabic forms to the total that were used. These results are summa-
rized in Table 3. The result of the target word analysis show that the majority of
Arsham’s Farsi words were multisyllabic, while the opposite was the case for his English
ones. The same pattern is reflected in Arsham’s productions. The majority of his English
words were monosyllabic (.57) while the majority of his Farsi words were multisyllabic
(.61). Arsham also had a tendency to produce monosyllabic target words as multi-
syllabic ones through some form of reduplication, for example, nun nun, eyes eyes, das
das. This effect was most noticeable before 16 months in the Farsi data and before 18
months in the English data. Arsham’s productions during these earlier months were influ-
enced by the nature of the input vocabulary, with a slight tendency to produce mono-
syllabic forms with an added syllable. There was virtually no evidence of syllable deletion.
Table 3
Arsham ’s proportion of m onosyllabic productions in both his input vocabulary and his ow n productions
A g e in M o n th s
Lan guage 9 to 1 6 1 7 to 1 8 1 9 to 2 0 M ean

English Target Words .65 .66 .50 .60
Arsham’s English Words .54 .58 .58 .57
Farsi Target Words .38 .45 .32 .39

Arsham’s Farsi Words .29 .50 .39 .39

In terms of stress, Arsham ’s multisyllabic words were stressed correctly from the
earliest stage of phonological acquisition. H is English words showed the highly trochaic
pattern found in the early vocabulary of English children, while his Farsi words showed
word-final Farsi stress. The only exception to this pattern involved a small set of English
words that showed final stress, for example, teddy, baby, apple.
As shown in Table 1, Farsi does not allow word initial consonant clusters, and only CC
final clusters. Arsham only produced five final clusters, with four of these in the last three
months of observation. H is English clusters were slightly more frequent, with 3 CC clusters
in word initial position, and nine in word final position. Similar to Farsi, the large majority
of these (8) appeared in the last three months. These results indicate that Arsham’s syllable
structure development is consistent with the target languages’syllable structure, with conso-
nant clusters in both languages emerging in the last three months of observation.
6.3
Segments
Arsham’s word initial consonants were analyzed as being acquired at the point when he
produced at least three words with the consonant correctly, and the percentage of correct-
ness was over 50%. The resulting consonantal inventories for English and Farsi word
initial consonants by this criterion were as follows:
(1) Arsham’s word initial consonants in English and Farsi
English Farsi
m n m n
b d g b d g
p t tS k p t k ?
f h
w j
l, r
The inventories share eight consonants, and all of the Farsi consonants are found
in the English inventory, including the glottal stop, which occurred phonetically. The
English inventory was larger, however, due to the appearance of an affricate, and two
fricatives, glides and liquids. Both inventories show a lack of fricatives, with only two in
the English one, /f/ and /h/ , and none in the Farsi inventory.
The same criterion was applied to Arsham’s final consonants in English and Farsi.
The results are given in (2):
(2) Arsham’s word final consonants in English and Farsi
English Farsi
n n
d b
t tS k
s S f s S
z z
l r

As with the word initial consonants, there were more final consonants acquired for
English than Farsi, nine versus seven, but the difference is not as great as for the word initial
ones. U nlike the word initial consonants, however, the final consonants in Farsi were not
just a subset of the English ones. The Farsi final consonants showed a dominance of
fricatives (4 out of 7) while English showed fricative as well but not as dominantly (3 out
of 9). The final consonant analysis provides evidence that Arsham was showing distinc-
tive patterns of acquisition for the two languages even more so than the word initial
consonant results. A substitution analysis was also conducted, but there were too few
cases to lend themselves to any generalization.
The results obtained so far can be discussed in relation to the hypotheses presented.
The first hypothesis, U nitary M odel, is rejected because Arsham acquired the stress
patterns of Farsi and English very early and did not impose one upon the other. The
consonant inventories were similar, but he acquired more word-initial consonants in
English than in Farsi. The D ual H ypothesis M odel was supported in general by the results
from the stress analysis, frequency analysis of monosyllabic productions, and the conso-
nantal analysis, especially in terms of the final consonants.
The next issue to be resolved is which of the remaining hypotheses best captures
Arsham’s patterns. The first distinction addressed was whether Arsham’s phonologies
were autonomous or showed interdependence. The analysis presented above looked for
general patterns of acquisition and was not directed toward low frequency instances of
possible interferences between the two phonological systems. To determine if the latter
were the case, a second, more qualitative, analysis was conducted. Seven such cases of
interference were identified and are summarized below. They involve stress, one conso-
nant, the glottal stop, and five instances of vowel errors, predominantly the use of
occasional English vowels in Farsi words.
1. S tress. Arsham’s initial linguistic productions were Farsi words with stress on the
final syllable, for example, “daddy” /bAbA/ [ bA:’ bA:], “mommy” /mAmA/ [mA:’ mA:],
“out” /d{d{/ [d{:’d{:], and so forth. Since during the first few months of the project
Arsham had greater exposure to Farsi, he transferred the stress pattern of Farsi to
some of the English words such as teddy, baby, apple, byebye. H owever, the influence
of Farsi stress on English was seen only when Arsham’s dominant language was
Farsi. As English became his dominant language after the word spurt, he acquired
the English stress pattern, that is, trochaic stress, and did not use the Farsi stress in
English words anymore. H e never used English trochaic stress in his Farsi words.
2. T he use of Farsi glottal stop [ ? ] in English words. Since [ ? ] was one of the first Farsi
sounds Arsham acquired, he later substituted certain English sounds with the Farsi
glottal stop, for example, happy [ ?{pi], hand [ ?{nd ], horse [ ?os], dolly [ dA?I ], please
[pe?iz], rabbit [?{bi]. Since English speakers used a glottal stop phonetically before
vocalic onsets, however, the source of these glottal stops is not conclusive.
3. T he use of Farsi [o] in some English words as in: mouth [mof ], boy [bo], bones [bon].
This substitution could also be interpreted as the use of an unmarked simple vowel
for a more complex diphthong.
4. T he use of a central schwa-like vowel in Farsi words, here broadly transcribed as [ @]
in both stressed and unstressed variant s. [ @], as a phoneme, does not exist in Farsi
(cf. Keshavarz, 1985; Samare, 1985; Yarmohammadi, 1985). H owever, since it is one
of the most frequent sounds in English, its use by Arsham was carried over to his
Farsi words. Examples include [n@na] ‘music and dance’ (child form with no adult
target word ), /bAlA/ [ b@’ lA ] ‘up ’, /mersi/ [ m@si] ‘thank you ’, /k@lid/ [ k@li] ‘key’,
/?{mu/ [ ?{m@] ‘uncle’, /borrow/ [ b@low] ‘go’. An alternative account of the schwa
is that it was the result of reducing an unstressed vowel due to a universal process
of vowel reduction, though the status of such a purported universal still needs to
be determined. Little is known about the extent to which children will do this in
languages that do not have a schwa, though H ochberg (1988) reports such cases for
Spanish children.
5. T he use of [ U ] in Farsi words. Farsi phonology lacks the lax high back rounded
vowel [ U]; however, its frequent use in English influenced Arsham’s pronunciation
of certain Farsi words, such as: /bus/ [ bUs] ‘kiss’, /dZudZu/ [ dU ’ du] ‘bird’, /poru/ [p @lU]
‘cheeky’, /muS/ [ mUS] ‘mouse’, /gust/ [ gUst] ‘meat’.
6. T he use of English [ O] in Farsi words. The mid back rounded vowel [ O ] does not exist
in Farsi, but Arsham used this sound in his Farsi words, such as: /xoreS/ [ OS ] ‘stew’,
[l Ola] ‘sleep’ (baby word with no adult target), /pAS ow/ [ pOS ow] ‘get up.’
7. T he use of the English lax high front vowel [ I ] in Farsi words, such as /m{ÎE/ [ m{ÎI]
‘mine’, [pet Ikow] ‘gallop’ (baby word with no adult target).
In and of themselves, none of these examples constitutes strong evidence for interfer-
ence between the two phonologies. We propose, however, that collectively they suggest at
least the possibility of interference. If we take these examples as cases of interference, the
result is the rejection of the Autonomy H ypothesis, and support for some form of Transfer.
The Transfer H ypothesis as stated is in one direction; that is, one language influences
the other. The cases of interference found were ones in which each language influenced
the other in different ways. A few English words such as teddy, baby, apple and byebye as
mentioned above showed the influence of Farsi stress during Arsham’s early months of
lexical acquisition when Farsi exposure was greatest. The influence shifted to an influence
of English on Farsi words later when English exposure became more dominant.
The data are difficult to assess regarding H ypothesis 4, acceleration, given the vari-
ability children show in phonological acquisition, and the limited information on Farsi
acquisition. Arsham produced several fricatives, but his English inventories do not look
unlike those reported for monolingual English children (e.g., Ingram, 1981; Stoel-Gammon,
1985). H e does show final liquids [l] and [r ], but [l ] only for English, and [r ] only for
Farsi. These could be argued as instances of acceleration, but the case would best be
made if the sounds were appearing in the inventories of both languages. It seems odd to
argue that the /l/ in Farsi accelerated /l/ in English when / l/ does not appear in Arsham’s
Farsi inventory. H e has several fricatives in both language inventories, but not always the
same ones. This hypothesis will likely be best tested by cases where more is known about
the order of acquisition for both languages, and where there are cases of sounds that are
consistently acquired late by monolingual speakers.
The last hypothesis to be considered is Hypothesis 5, delay, that is, that bilingual acqui-
sition will overload the system to the extent that the resulting phonologies will be not as
developed as in monolingual children at a comparable developmental period. To examine
this issue for English, Arsham ’s word initial and final consonantal inventories (1) and (2)
above, were compared to those found in young English children reported in Ingram (1981)
for children during the stage of acquiring their first 50 words. These are summarized
below:
(3) Early Consonantal Inventories for English Children (Ingram, 1981)
Word Initial Word F inal
m n m n
p t k p t k
b d g
f s h
w j
Arsham’s consonant inventory was analyzed at age 16 months, the time when his
English vocabulary reached 50 words. U sing the criterion in Ingram (1981), a consonant
was considered acquired if it was used in any two words. (4) provides the results of the analysis.
(4) Arsham’s English Consonants at 50 words (16 months of age)

Word Initial Word F inal
m s
b d g t k
p k l
w j
l
Arsham’s inventories when compared to those in (3) are slightly smaller, 13 versus 18,
lending some modest support to the possibility that acquiring two languages is influ-
encing the size of his phonetic inventory. The qualitative differences found are also
noteworthy. The use of [l ] is found in Arsham’s initial and final inventories, but not in
the inventories in (3). The use of fricatives also differs, with Arsham using only one frica-
tive, and none in initial position. It is equally possible to argue that the differences between
Arsham’s inventories and those of monolingual English children are more qualitative
rather than quantitative.
In terms of Arsham’s Farsi, there is much less data available for comparison. The
two available studies are N aderi and Seifnaraghi (1992) and Fahim (1994). N aderi and
Seifnaraghi conducted a cross-sectional study of 360 Farsi-speaking monolingual children
from birth to two years of age in six different age groups, each consisting of 30 children,
to determine their pattern of early consonantal development.
The age group comparable to the data in the present study is the fifth group, age 1;0
to 1;6. N aderi and Seifnaraghi report (Table 1,5, p. 20) that none of the 30 children in this
age group individually produced more than 30 words. This is in stark contrast to the more
than 100 words that Arsham acquired over the same period. The phonological analysis
of these children revealed that the most frequent consonants and vowels were /m, b, d,
n / . These sounds were followed in frequency by/ q, h, ?, t, p, k, S /. Arsham had acquired
/ m, n, b, d / by 18 months, matching the four consonants that N aderi and Seifnaraghi
claimed were frequent. Also, Arsham showed the use of the consonants /r, s, p, f, z, t, d Z ,
h/ but not at a rate to meet the frequency criteria used. It should be pointed out that the
analysis used by N aderi and Seifnaraghi used tokens rather than types, and they did not
follow an analysis using a frequency criterion or distinguishing between word position as
in the present study.
The only other available study on Farsi phonological development is by Fahim
(1994). Fahim studied the language acquisition of his daughter from 7 to 36 months of
age. The period selected for comparison to Arsham is that between 10 and 18 months. In
terms of lexical development, Arsham produced a larger number of Farsi words than
F, 141 versus 63. Also, preliminary analysis of consonants and vowels produced by the
two children showed that Arsham produced a wider range of sounds and with greater
frequency than Fahim’s child. Like Naderi and Seifnaraghi, Fahim did not follow an analytic
approach comparable to the one used in this study.
G iven the differences in data collection and methodology between these studies and
the present one, caution needs to be taken in comparing the results. A conservative inter-
pretation, however, is that Arsham’s consonantal inventory appears at least comparable
to that of monolingual Farsi speaking children. H ypothesis 5, therefore, is only weakly
supported by the English data, if at all.
7 Summary
The main conclusion drawn from the present study is that it is possible for the bilingual
child to acquire two separate phonologies; however, the nature of the two phonological
acquisitions may not be uniform. Variation may be observed according to the exposure
patterns to the two languages and shifting of language dominance. The subject of the present
study initially produced a number of sounds and words in Farsi as he had further expo-
sure to this language compared to English. H owever, as English became his dominant
language, the rate of acquisition of this language accelerated. It can also be concluded
that the two phonologies may influence each other. That is, the bilingual child may make
use of certain phonemes of one language when using utterances in the other language and
vice-versa.
References
ALLEN, G., & H AWKIN S, S. (1980). Phonological rhythm: D efinition and development. In G.
Yeni-Komshian, J. K avanaugh, & C. Ferguson (Eds.), Child phonology, Vol. 1: Production
(pp. 227– 256). N ew York: Academic Press.
BERG M AN, C. R . (1976). Interference versus independent development in infant bilingualism.
In G. Keller, R . Teschner & S. Viera (Eds.), Bilingualism in bicentennial and beyond. N ew
York: Bilingual Press.
BH ATIA, T. K ., & R ITCHIE, W. C. (1999). The bilingual child: Some issues and perspectives. In
W. C. R itchie & T. K . Bhatia (Eds.), H andbook of child language acquisition (pp. 569– 643).
San D iego: Academic Press.
DEHOU WER , A. (1990). T he acquisition of two languages: A case study. Cambridge, U.K .:
Cambridge U niversity Press.
DEUCH AR , M ., & CLAR K , A. (1996). Early bilingual acquisition of the voicing contrast in
English and Spanish. Journal of Phonetics, 24, 351– 365.

FAH IM , M . (1994). T he development of the Persian language: First language acquisition.

U npublished Ph.D. Thesis, Islamic Azad U niversity, Tehran.
F ERG U SON, C. A. (1957). Word stress in Persian. L anguage, 33, 123 – 136.
G EN ESEE, F. (1989). Early bilingual development: One language or two? Journal of Child
L anguage, 6, 161– 179.
G EN ESEE, F., N ICOLAD IS, E., & PAR ADIS, J. (1995). Language differentiation in early
bilingual development. Journal of Child L anguage, 22, 611– 632.
G H EORG H OV, I. (1905). D ie ersten Anfänge des sprachlichen Ausdrucks für das
Selbstbewussten bei K indern. A rchiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 5, 329 – 404.
G IEG ER ICH , H . (1992). English phonology: A n introduction. Cambridge, U.K .: Cambridge
U niversity Press.
H AK U TA, K . (1986). M irror of language: T he debate on bilingualism. N ew York: Basic Books.
H AG H SH ENAS, A. M . (1977). Phonetics. (In Persian). Tehran: Agah Publications.
H OCH BERG, J. (1988). F irst steps in the acquisition of Spanish stress. Journal of Child
L anguage, 15, 273 – 292.
H OLM , A., & D OD D, B. (1998). A longitudinal study of the phonological development of two
Cantonese-English bilingual children. U npublished manuscript, D epartment of Speech,
U niversity of N ewcastle upon Tyne, U.K .
IN GR AM , D. (1981). Procedures for the phonological analysis of children’s language. Baltimore,
M D : U niversity Park Press.
IN GR AM , D. (1981/ 82). The emerging phonological system of an Italian-English bilingual
child. Journal of Italian L inguistics, 95 – 113.
IN G R AM , D. (1989). First language acquisition: M ethod, description and ex planation.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge U niversity Press.
JACK SON -M ALD ONAD O, D., TH AL, D., M ARCH M AN, V., BATES, E., & G UTIER R EZ-
CLELLE N, V. (1993). Early lexical development in Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers.
Journal of Child L anguage, 20, 523– 549.
JOH NSON, C., & LAN CASTER , P. (1998). The development of more than one phonology: A
case study of a N orwegian-English bilingual child. International Journal of Bilingualism,
2, 265– 300.
K ESH AVAR Z, M . H . (1985). Techniques and procedures for teaching English pronunciation to
Iranian students. ROS H D FLT J, 1, 1 – 5.
LAN ZA, E. (1997). L anguage mixing in infant bilingualism: A sociolinguistic perspective. Oxford:
Oxford U niversity Press.
LEON AR D, L. B., & BORTOLIN I, U. (1991). The speech of phonologically disordered children
acquiring Italian. Clinical L inguistics & Phonetics, 5, 1 – 12.
LEOPOL D, W. (1970). (cf. 1939 – 49). S peech development of a bilingual child. A linguistic’s
record. Four Volumes. N ew York: AM S Press.
M EISEL, J. M . (1989). Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K . H yltenstam
& L. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism across the lifespan: In health and pathology. Cambridge,
U.K .: Cambridge U niversity Press.
NAD ER I, E., & SEIF NAR AG H I, M . (1992). Speech and language development of Persian-
speaking children from birth to eight years of age. (In Persian). Tehran: Teacher Training
U niversity Press.
OBELEN SK Y, S., PAN AH , K . Y., & N OU R I, P. K . (1963). Persian basic course. Washington,
D C: Center for Applied Linguistics.
PAD ILLA, A. M ., & LIEBM AN, E. (1975). Language acquisition in a bilingual child. Bilingual
Review, 2, 34 – 55.
PAR AD IS, J. (1996). Prosodic development and differentiation in bilingual first language
acquisition. In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-Amitay, E. Hughes, & A. Zukowski (Eds.),

Proceedings of the 20th A nnual Boston University Conference on L anguage Development

(pp. 528– 539). Somerville, M A: Cascadilla Press.
PAR AD IS, J., & G EN ESEE, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: Autonomous
or interdependent? S tudies in S econd L anguage A cquisition, 18, 1 – 25.
PYE, C., ING R AM , D., & LIST, H . (1987). A comparison of initial consonant acquisition in
English and Quiche. In K . E. N elson & Van K leek (Eds.), Children’s L anguage, Vol. 6
(pp. 170– 190). H ilsdale, N J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
QUAY, S. (1995). The bilingual lexicon: Implications for studies on language choice. Journal of
Child L anguage, 22, 369 – 387.
SAM AR E, Y. (1985). Persian phonetics. Tehran: Iran University Press.
SCH N ITZER , M . L., & K R ASIN SK I, E. (1994). The development of segmental phonological
production in a bilingual child. Journal of Child L anguage, 21, 585 – 622.
SCH N ITZER , M . L., & K R ASIN SK I, E. (1996). The development of segmental phonological
production in a bilingual child: A contrasting second case. Journal of Child L anguage,
23, 547– 571.
SH IR I, R . (1987). A contrastive study of stress placement on English and Persian words including
frequency considerations for pedagogical purposes. U npublished M .A. Thesis, Shiraz
U niversity.
STOEL-G AM M ON, C. (1985). Phonetic inventories, 15 to 24 months: A longitudinal study.
Journal of S peech and H earing R esearch, 28, 505– 512.
VIH M AN, M . M . (1985). Language differentiation by the bilingual infant. Journal of Child
L anguage, 12, 297– 324.
VIH M AN, M . M . (1996). Phonological development: T he origins of language in the child. Oxford,
U.K.: Blackwell.
VOG EL, I. (1975). One system or two: An analysis of a two-year-old Romanian-English
bilingual’s phonology. Papers and R eports on Child L anguage Development, 9, 43 – 62.
VOLTER R A, V., & TAESCH N ER , T. (1978). The acquisition and development of language by
bilingual children. Journal of Child L anguage, 5, 311 – 326.
YAR M OH AM M AD I, L. (1985). A n introduction to phonetics (In Persian). Tehran: Iran
U niversity Press.
YARM OH AM M ADI, L. (1996). A contrastive phonological analysis of English and Persian. Shiraz:
Shiraz University Press.


The Early Phonological Development of A Farsi-English Bilingual Child

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

The Early Phonological Development of A Farsi-English Bilingual Child

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Volume 6 Number 3 September 2002,

Farsi-English 255 –child