Implications of Heritage Language Sound Systems for Understanding Perception–Production Links
Charles B. Chang, City University of Hong Kong
How does the way we speak align with the way we listen? Research examining the relationship between perception and production of spoken language has approached this question from multiple perspectives, including language acquisition, auditory feedback alteration, and socio-historical linguistics. In this talk, I will review findings from phonetic and phonological research on heritage speakers that explores the nature of perception–production links, including work on heritage Spanish and heritage Cantonese in the U.S. Taken together, the results of this research are not consistent with a unified perception–production system, but instead support an architecture with separate, albeit connected, perception and production modules. I will discuss implications for theorizing speech representations and opportunities for designing both research and curricula tailored to heritage learners.