Abstract:
The present study examined the phonological development of 15 typically developing successive Cantonese-English bilingual children aged 5;0 to 7;11 in New Zealand. The study aimed to provide normative data to aid Speech-Language Therapists (SLTs) working in New Zealand in diagnosing Cantonese-English bilingual clients. Using similar methodologies from previous studies of phonological development on monolingual children (Dodd, Holm, Zhu & Crosbie, 2003) and bilingual children (e.g. Holm & Dodd, 2006), children’s phonological acquisition, phonological accuracy and phonological error patterns were analyzed and compared to available data from monolingual and bilingual studies. It was found that language dominance interacted with all aspects of phonological development. For phonological acquisition, all children have acquired the majority of the phonemes in Cantonese and English. Non-Cantonese-dominant bilinguals were slower in the acquisition of Cantonese phonemes compared to their Cantonesedominant bilingual peers, whose rate of acquisition was comparable to monolingual Cantonese children. Bilinguals were comparable to local monolingual English children in the acquisition of English phonemes. For phonological accuracy, most children obtained high levels of phonological accuracy (close to or above 90%) in both languages. However, due to small sample sizes within each age group, no statistical analyses were conducted. Overall, bilinguals have caught up in terms of English accuracy to the levels of their local monolingual peers. However, Cantonese accuracy was slightly lower than monolinguals, possibly related to first language attrition. Non-Cantonese-dominant bilinguals obtained noticeably lower accuracy in Cantonese than English, while Cantonese-dominant obtained similar or higher accuracy in Cantonese than English. Analyses of phonological error patterns revealed that bilinguals produced both typical and atypical error patterns, consistent with previous studies. Some atypical patterns possibly arise from interference across the bilingual’s languages. Interference typically occurred by the dominant language influencing the non-dominant language. Two atypical patterns, denasalization and orally released final nasals were generally not found in bilingual studies, possibly as a result of contact between Chinese dialects. The study highlighted the importance of considering clients’ language background and language dominance in clinical work.