Cover not available
Part of
Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain
Edited by Rajiv Rao
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 28] 2020
► pp. 383–420

Chapter 14
Spanish phonology in contact with Catalan

On implementations of gradience and discreteness in the study of sociolinguistic variation of laterals

| University of California, Berkeley

This study investigates sociophonetic variation in the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in Catalan and Spanish, the velarization of which is considered the hallmark feature of Catalonian Spanish (Arnal, 2011; Casanovas Català, 1995; Hickey, 2012). Using an innovative combination of both gradient and categorical analyses to evaluate lateral production in Spanish and Catalan elicited from Catalan-Spanish bilinguals and Madrid monolinguals stratified by gender and exposure/usage of Catalan, we assess the degree to which lateral velarization pervades this contact setting. In so doing, we demonstrate that lateral velarization and the inventory of lateral categories in these languages are best approached using gradient and relative hierarchies of lateral darkness rather than discrete applications of intrinsically light [l] or dark [ɫ].

Keywords: lateral velarization, Spanish-Catalan contact, sociophonetics, dark and light /l/, bilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Assessments of lateral production in Spanish, Catalan, and other languages
    • 2.1Lateral production in (monolingual) Spanish
    • 2.2Lateral production in Catalan
    • 2.3On the classifications and criteria for distinguishing light and dark laterals
    • 2.4Acoustic metrics for assessing gradient velarization and discrete lateral allophones
  • 3.Research questions and hypotheses concerning CCS lateral production
  • 4.Experimental methodology
    • 4.1Linguistic factors
    • 4.2Social factors and subject population
    • 4.3Test instruments
    • 4.4Data collection methods
  • 5.Data analysis methods and results
    • 5.1Acoustic analysis
    • 5.2Total counts of collected lateral production data
    • 5.3Results – overall distribution of lateral production by language and profile group
    • 5.4Results – linguistic and social factors conditioning CCS and Catalan lateral velarization
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Lateral velarization in CCS, Catalan, and monolingual Spanish
    • 6.2Lateral inventories and considerations for the classification of light and dark laterals
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.14dav
References
Allen, S.
(1989) Vox Latina: The Pronunciation of Classical Latin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Arnal, A.
(2011) Linguistic changes in the Catalan spoken in Catalonia under new contact conditions. Journal of Language Contact, 4, 5–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bansal, R. K.
(1990) The pronunciation of English in India. In S. Ramsaran (Ed.), Studies in the pronunciation of English. A commemorative volume in honour of A. C. Gimson (pp. 219–230). Abingdon, UK/New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bean, A. R.
(2013) Leaving the dark to find the light: A study of L1 English acquisition of L2 Spanish /l/ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
Boix i Fuster, E., & Xavier Vila i Moreno, F.
(1998) Sociolingüística de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística.Google Scholar
Casanovas Català, M.
(1995) La interferencia fonética en el español de Lleida: Algunos apuntes para su estudio. Sintagma, 7, 53–59.Google Scholar
Consorci d’Informació i Documentació de Catalunya
(1978) Avenç de resultats del padró municipal del 1975 de la província de Barcelona (dades provisionals). Barcelona.Google Scholar
Dalston, R. M.
(1975) Acoustic characteristics of English /w,r,l/ spoken correctly by young children and adults. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, 57, 462–469. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidson, J.
(2019) Covert and overt attitudes towards Catalonian Spanish laterals and intervocalic fricatives. In W. Chappell (Ed.), Recent advances in the study of Spanish sociophonetic perception (pp. 38–84). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deevi, S.
(2016) Find the modes and assess the modality of complex and mixture distributions, especially with big datasets. R. Retrieved from [URL] (21 February, 2020).
Ellison, A. M.
(1987) Effect of seed dimorphism on the density-dependent dynamics of experimental populations of Atriplex Triangularis (Chenopodiaceae). American Journal of Botany, 74(8), 1280–1288. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fabricius, A. H.
(2007) Variation and change in the TRAP and STRUT vowels of RP: A real time comparison of five acoustic data sets. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37, 293–320. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fant, G.
(1960) Acoustic Theory of Speech Production. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E.
(1995) Second-language speech learning: Theory, findings and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 233–277). Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
(2002) Interactions between the native and second-language phonetic systems. In P. Burmeister, T. Piske, & A. Rohde (Eds.), An Integrated View of Language Development: Papers in Honor of Henning Wode (pp. 217–244). Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.Google Scholar
(2007) Language contact in bilingualism: Phonetic system interactions. In J. Cole & J. I. Hualde (Eds.), Laboratory Phonology, 9 (pp. 353–382). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Fuchs, R.
(2015) The acoustic realisation of light and dark laterals in educated Indian English (Unpublished manuscript).
Galindo Solé, M.
(2003) Language contact phenomena in Catalonia: The influence of Catalan in spoken Castilian. In L. Sayahi (Ed.), Selected proceedings of the First Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 18–29). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Giles, S. B., & Moll, K. L.
(1975) Cinefluorographic study of selected allophones of English /l/. Phonetica, 31, 206–227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grandgent, C. H.
(1991) Introducción al latín vulgar. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.Google Scholar
Grosjean, F.
(2001) The bilingual’s language modes. In J. L. Nicol (Ed.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing (pp. 1–22). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hickey, R.
(2012) Internally and externally motivated language change. In J. M. Hernández-Compoy & J. C. Conde-Silvestre (Eds.), The handbook of historical sociolinguistics (pp. 401–421). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hualde, J. I.
(2005) The sounds of Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huguet, Á.
(2006) Small languages and school: The case of Catalonia and the Basque Country. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 182, 147–159.Google Scholar
Institut d’Estadística de Catalunya
(2014) Territori: Banc d’estadístiques de municipis i comarques. [URL]Google Scholar
Labov, W.
(2001) Principles of linguistic change, Vol. 2: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P.
(1968) The nature of general phonetic theories. In R. J. O’Brien (Ed.), The Georgetown University Round Table selected papers on linguistics 1961–1965 (pp. 283–298). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Lleó, C., Cortés, S., & Benet, A.
(2008) Contact-induced phonological changes in the Catalan spoken in Barcelona. In P. Siemund & N. Kintana (Eds.), Language contact and contact languages (pp. 185–212). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martínez Celdrán, E., & Fernández Planas, A. M.
(2007) Manual de fonética española. Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar
Moreno Fernández, F.
(2009) Principios de sociolingüística y sociología del lenguaje (4th ed.). Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar
Morris, J.
(2017) Sociophonetic variation in a long-term language contact situation: /l/-darkening in Welsh-English Bilingual Speech. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 21(2), 183–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Navarro Tomás, T.
(1918) Manual de pronunciación española. Madrid: Imprenta de los Sucesores de Hernando.Google Scholar
Niedermann, M.
(1953) Précis de phonétique historique du latin. Paris: C. Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Oxley, J., Roussel, N., & Buckingham, H.
(2007) Contextual variability in American English dark-l. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 21, 523–542. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pieras, F.
(1999) Social dynamics of language contact in Palma de Mallorca: Attitude and phonological transfer (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
Pope, M. K.
(1973) From Latin to Modern French with Special Consideration of Anglo-Norman: Phonology and Morphology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Prats, M., Rafanell, A., & Rossich, A.
(1990) El futur de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Empúries.Google Scholar
Prieto, P.
(2004) Fonètica i fonologia. Els sons del català. Barcelona: Editorial UOC.Google Scholar
Proctor, M. I.
(2009) Gestural characterization of a phonological class: The liquids (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Quilis, A.
(1981) Fonética acústica de la lengua española. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Rasico, P. D.
(1981) Preliterary Catalan historical phonology (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Recasens, D.
(1991) Fonètica descriptiva del català: Assaig de caracterització de la pronunciació del vocalisme i consonantisme del català al segle XX. Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans.Google Scholar
(1996) An articulatory-perceptual account of vocalization and elision of dark /l/ in the Romance languages. Language and Speech, 39(1), 63–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) Darkness in [l] as a scalar phonetic property: Implications for phonology and articulatory control. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 18(6–8), 593–603. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012) A cross-language acoustic study of initial and final allophones of /l/. Speech Communication, 54, 368–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014a) Coarticulation and sound change in Romance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014b) Fonètica i fonologia experimentals del català: Vocals i consonants. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans.Google Scholar
Recasens, D., & Espinosa, A.
(2005) Articulatory, positional and coarticulatory characteristics for clear /l/ and dark /l/: Evidence from two Catalan dialects. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 35(1), 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Recasens, D., & Farnetani, E.
(1990) Articulatory and acoustic properties of different allophones of /l/ in American English, Catalan and Italian. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (pp. 961–964). Kobe, Japan.
Recasens, D., Fontdevila, J., & Pallarès, M. D.
(1995) Velarization degree and coarticulatory resistance for /l/ in Catalan and German. Journal of Phonetics, 23, 37–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996) Linguopalatal coarticulation and alveolar-palatal corrections for velarized and non-velarized /l/. Journal of Phonetics, 24, 165–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Recasens, D., & Pallarès, M. D.
(2001) De la fonètica a la fonologia: Les consonants i assimilacions consonàntiques del català. Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar
Slomanson, P., & Newman, M.
(2004) Peer group identification and variation in New York Latino English laterals. English World-Wide, 25, 199–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwegler, A., Kempff, J., & Ameal-Guerra, A.
(2010)  Fonética y fonología españolas (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Seib, J.
(2001) La variedad bilingüe del español hablado en Cataluña caracterizada por interferencias y convergencias con el catalán (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universität Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
Serrano Vázquez, M.
(1996) Rasgos fonéticos del carácter interferencial en el castellano de una comunidad bilingüe. Estudios de Lingüística: Universidad de Alicante, 11, 365–383.Google Scholar
Simonet, M.
(2010) Dark and clear laterals in Catalan and Spanish: Interaction of phonetic categories in early bilinguals. Journal of Phonetics, 38, 663–678. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sinner, C.
(2002) The construction of identity and group boundaries in Catalan Spanish. In A. Duszak (Ed.), Us and others: Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures (pp. 159–185). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sproat, R., & Fujimura, O.
(1993) Allophonic variation in English /l/ and its implications for phonetic implementation. Journal of Phonetics, 21, 291–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stevens, K. N.
(2000) Acoustic phonetics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strubell, M.
(2001) Catalan a decade later. In J. Fishman (Ed.), Can threatened languages be saved? (pp. 260–283). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, S.
(2006) Analysing sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012) Variationist sociolinguistics: Change, observation, interpretation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Turton, D.
(2014) Some /l/s are darker than others: Accounting for variation in English /l/ with ultrasound tongue imaging. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 20(2), 189–198.Google Scholar
Vallverdú, F.
(1984) A sociolinguistic history of Catalan. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 47, 13–28.Google Scholar
Van Coetsem, F.
(2000) A general and unified theory of the transmission process in language contact. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Van Hofwegen, J.
(2009) Cross-generational change in /l/ in Chicano English. English World-Wide, 30(3), 302–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vann, R. E.
(2000) Constructing reality in bicultural communication: Catalan ways of speaking Spanish. Intercultural Communication Studies, 10(1), 113–124.Google Scholar
(2001) El castellà catalanitzat a Barcelona: Perspectives lingüístiques i culturals. Catalan Review, 15(1), 117–131.Google Scholar
Watt, D., & Fabricius, A. H.
(2002) Evaluation of a technique for improving the mapping of multiple speakers’ vowel spaces in the f1-f2 plane. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics, 9, 159–163.Google Scholar
Wesch, A.
(1997) El castellano hablado de Barcelona y el influjo del catalán: Esbozo de un programa de investigación. Anuario Galego de Filoloxía (VERBA), 24, 287–312.Google Scholar
Woolard, K.
(2016) Singular and plural: Ideologies of linguistic authority in 21st century Catalonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Davidson, Justin
2022. On Catalan as a minority language: The case of Catalan laterals in Barcelonan Spanish. Journal of Sociolinguistics 26:3 ► pp. 362 ff. DOI logo
Davidson, Justin
2022. Chapter 13. On (not) acquiring a sociolinguistic stereotype. In Variation in Second and Heritage Languages [Studies in Language Variation, 28], ► pp. 337 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.