Sociolinguistic Awareness in Galician Bilinguals

Evidence from an Accent Identification Task

Bibliographic Data

ID5901302
AuthorsGisela Tomé Lourido (0000-0002-3456-7334, University of Leeds, corresponding author), Bronwen G Evans (0000-0002-8495-2687, University College London)
Year2021
Volume6
Issue1
Pages53
Publication date2021-03-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages6010053
OpenAlexW3136608616
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited87

The inclusion of European minority languages in public spaces such as education, administration and the media has led to the emergence of a new profile of speakers, "new speakers", who typically acquire a minority language through education, but vary in terms of their language experience and use. The present study investigated whether a distinctive variety spoken by Galician new speakers (neofalantes) has emerged in the community and whether listeners' language background influences accent identification abilities and patterns. Galician-Spanish bilingual listeners completed an accent identification task and were asked to comment on factors influencing their decision. Results demonstrated that all listeners could identify Galician-dominant better than Spanish-dominant bilinguals but could not identify neofalantes. Neofalantes were categorised as both Spanish- and Galician-dominant, supporting the idea that neofalantes have a hybrid variety. This finding suggests that listeners have a gradient representation of language background variation, with Galician-like and Spanish-like accents functioning as anchors and the neofalantes' accent situated somewhere in the middle. Identification accuracy was similar for all listeners but neofalantes showed heightened sensitivity to the Galician-dominant variety, suggesting that evaluation of sociophonetic features depends on the listener's language and social background. These findings contribute to our understanding of sociolinguistic awareness in bilingual contexts

Identification (biology · Linguistics · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Pitch accent · Prosody · Stress (linguistics · Task (project management · Variation (astronomy · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies

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