Emerging Phonology Under Language Contact: The Case of Sino-Russian Idiolects

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to examine what kind of phonological system emerges because of language contact wherein adult speakers of L1 (Chinese) attempt to speak L2 (Russian) without any previous instruction in L2. The main findings of this study are as follows: a) The speakers of L1 largely adopt the phonetic inventory and phonotactics of L2 and b) the only underlying (distinctive) features in the emerging phonological system are those of place of articulation while voicing plays no distinctive role in the emerging phonological system of Chinese speakers. Moreover, the speakers of L1 faithfully replicate the stress system of L2, even though L1 (Chinese) is a tonal language and L2, Russian, is a stress language. The most important finding of this study is that speakers of L1 discern the entity ‘word’ in L2. The emerging phonological system is geared towards assuring the identifiability of words in L2 rather than towards consistency of phonological rules.