Bilingual Rhotic Production Patterns: A Generational Comparison of Spanish-English Bilingual Speakers in Canada

This paper considers the differences in producing the acoustic correlates of the phonemic alveolar tap /ɾ/, phonemic canonical trill /r/, and alveolar approximant /ɹ/ in two groups of Spanish-English bilinguals: early (heritage Spanish) and late (native Spanish) bilingual speakers. In particular, the study explores cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and the phenomenon of phonetic drift across two generations of Colombian Spanish-English bilinguals residing in Canada. The data suggest that early bilinguals exhibit shorter trill durations with fewer closures, while late bilinguals show variation in their realizations of the approximant, producing taps, trills, and fricatives instead. Both groups display evidence of phonetic drift and CLI, with early bilinguals showing influence from English and late bilinguals favouring Spanish-like patterns. Our investigation adds to the body of work on CLI by examining its bidirectional effects in both early and late bilinguals.