Comparing the perception of monolingual and bilingual children

Abstract

In this study, we analyzed and compared the results of a perception test administered to 30 students, divided in three distinct groups: monolinguals from a city called Rio Grande, who are not in contact with speakers from another language (group MR); monolinguals from a town called Picada Café, who are in contact with bilingual speakers (group MP) and bilinguals from the same town (group B). By testing the perception of voiceless and voiced plosives in groups that have distinct production in these segments, we hope to find differences in the perception of the students investigated. Based on Gestual Fonology, we adopt a dynamic speech perception perspective. The test, developed by the authors, was divided into two parts: non-manipulated VOTs and manipulated ones. As for the data analysis, in the non-manipulated stimuli, we found more perception mistakes in the MP group, followed by the MR and the B groups. From the perspective of a zero VOT – manipulated options- both groups from Picada Café chose option ‘A’ (voiceless), while the group from Rio Grande preferred option ‘C’ (voiced). A significant difference was only found in one of the analyses carried out. This leads us to the conclusion that there is a difference between the bilingual group and the other ones. We believe that the differences found in the groups from Picada Café exist in view of the contact of its participants with the Hunsrückisch immigration language, which is in accordance with the dymanic conception of language acquisition guiding this study.