Lateral Variants of Bosnian Migrants Living in Vienna

Objective

The aim of this study is to investigate the phonetics of second language acquisition and first language attrition, based on the acoustic and articulatory lateral realizations of Bosnian migrants living in Vienna. Bosnian has two lateral phonemes (a palatalized and an alveolar/velarized one), whereas Standard Austrian German features only one lateral phoneme (an alveolar lateral). In the Viennese dialect however, this phoneme also has a velarized variant.

This phonetic investigation will be conducted with respect to the influence of language contact between Bosnian and SAG, and Bosnian and the Viennese dialect, as well as concerning the influence of gender and identity construction.

Method

The recordings will be conducted with female and male Bosnian speakers, aged between 20 and 35 years at the time of emigration, who came to Vienna during the Bosnian war 1992-1995. Additionally, control groups of monolingual L1 speakers of Bosnian, SAG and Vd will be recorded. All recordings will include reading tasks in order to elicit controlled speech, as well as spontaneous speech in the form of biographical interviews. The analyses will comprise quantitative and qualitative aspects. Quantitatively, the acoustic parameters formant frequencies (especially F2 and F3), duration and intensity of the laterals and their phonetic surrounding will be analyzed. Additionally, articulatory analyses will be performed using EPG and UTI data. Qualitatively, biographical information, language attitudes and social networks will be analysed in order to obtain information about speaker-specific or group-specific characteristics.

Application

The results of this study are relevant to understanding the processes of sound-realization and sound-change in the domains of language contact (phonetic processes in second language acquisition and first language attrition), sociolinguistics, and the sociology of identity construction