Phonological patterns in Mandarin–English bilingual children

Abstract

Adele Miccio recognized the paucity of information on the phonological development of children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and emphasized the need to apply advances in bilingual phonological research toward an appropriate phonological measure for bilingual children. In the spirit of her pioneering work, the present study investigated both Mandarin and English phonological patterns in typically-developing 5-year-old bilingual children in an English-immersion programme in Taiwan. Consonant and vowel accuracy, number and types of phonological processes, and Mandarin-influenced English patterns were assessed on a single-word assessment in each language. Results indicated comparable levels of phoneme accuracy and similar rates and types of phonological processes for bilinguals and their monolingual counterparts. A number of English phonological processes for bilinguals, however, suggested a possible Mandarin influence. The present results reiterate Dr Miccio's call for interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance one's understanding of bilingual language development, to advance successful intervention for bilingual children.

Keywords:

• Multilingualism
• phonological acquisition
• Mandarin
• English

Acknowledgements

The data for this article were part of the first author's dissertation study on the effects of early English learning on the phonological awareness and language development of Taiwanese bilingual children. The study was supported in part by an ASHA Foundation Student Research Grant in Early Childhood Language Development and an Elaine Paden Award from the University of Illinois. Different portions of this article were presented at the 2005 International Child Phonology Conference, Texas, and the 2007 International Conference and Workshop on TEFL and Applied Linguistics, Taiwan. The authors would like to acknowledge Megan Wehrli, Emily Galassi, and Chia-Hua Lin for completing phonological transcription and/or performing reliability estimates. Finally, our sincere thanks go to the children, families, and schools for their patience and willingness to participate in the study.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1. Mandarin PCC of these five children ranged from 68.8–82.8, and the phonological processes with percentages of occurrence greater than 10% exhibited by these children are considered atypical for their given ages in Mandarin phonological development. These phonological processes included backing, stopping, deaffrication, and affrication.