Friday, October 14, 2022, 9:00-10:30 am, in 127 Moore and via Zoom
In this talk, Dr. Chang will describe a research program investigating the dynamics of cross-linguistic influence in multilingual (as opposed to bilingual) speech. First, he will discuss a line of research examining the roles of acquisition order and phonetic similarity in influencing progressive cross-linguistic influence during third language (L3) perceptual learning. The results of this research show a facilitative effect of prior tonal experience, whether from one's first-learned language (L1) or second-learned language (L2), in L3 tone perception, but also a larger effect of L1 tonal experience; furthermore, the results show no effect of typological similarity, although there are effects of crosslinguistic perceptual similarity and within-language acoustic similarity. Second, he will discuss a line of research examining the roles of acquisition order and typological similarity among L1, L2, and L3 in regressive cross-linguistic influence, focusing on the case of speech rhythm in "stress-timed" and "syllable-timed" languages within the same linguistic repertoire. The results show a prevailing effect of similarity, but also an interaction between effects of similarity and of order. He will discuss the implications of these findings both for models of later language acquisition and for models of nonnative speech.