%0 Journal Article
%T Which Language R You Speaking? /r/ as a Language Marker in Tyrolean and Italian Bilinguals
%A Alessandro Vietti
%A Constantijn Kaland
%A Lorenzo Spreafico
%A Vincenzo Galat¨¤
%J Language and Speech
%@ 1756-6053
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0023830917746551
%X Across languages of the world the /r/ sound is known for its variability. This variability has been investigated using articulatory models as well as in sociolinguistic studies. The current study investigates to what extent /r/ is a marker of a bilingual¡¯s dominant language. To this end, a reading task was carried out by bilingual speakers from South Tyrol, who produce /r/ differently according to whether they dominantly speak Tyrolean or Italian. The recorded reading data were subsequently used in a perception experiment to investigate whether South Tyrolean bilingual listeners are able to identify the dominant language of the speaker. Results indicate that listeners use /r/ as a cue to determine the dominant language of the speaker whilst relying on articulatory distinctions between the variants. It is furthermore shown that /r/ correlates with three interdependent variables: the sociolinguistic background of the speakers, their speech production, and how their speech is perceived
%K Phonetics
%K speech production
%K speech perception
%K articulation
%K bilingualism
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0023830917746551