A sociophonetic analysis of rhotic variation in Italian schoolchildren

This paper investigates the production of Italian rhotics in the speech of 75 schoolchildren (6-10 years old) in the area of Biella, in the North-West of Italy. As rhotics are subject to a high degree of variation in Italian, their distribution and phonetic realisations were taken into account to te...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Quaderns d'Italia Vol. 28; pp. 147 - 174
Main Authors:	Rossi, Martina, Sbacco, Lucia
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 18-12-2023
Subjects:	child language heritage languages Italian phonological acquisition Rhotics sociophonetic variation
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	This paper investigates the production of Italian rhotics in the speech of 75 schoolchildren (6-10 years old) in the area of Biella, in the North-West of Italy. As rhotics are subject to a high degree of variation in Italian, their distribution and phonetic realisations were taken into account to test the influence of linguistic and sociolinguistic variables, i.e., phonological context, age and migratory background of the children’s families. Results show that children’s production varies across contexts and ages, as older subjects’ patterns of variation seem to be approaching the distribution and the characteristics that would be expected in the target. Moreover, we propose that the migratory backgrounds and, in particular, the different Heritage Languages present in the children’s repertoires, might be explanatory to the high degree of variability observed, e.g., in subjects of the same age.
ISSN:	1135-9730 2014-8828
DOI:	10.5565/rev/qdi.570