Charles Rojas, “Poverty of the Stimulus”
Mentor: Jae Yung Song, Linguistics, Letters & Science (College of)
Oral Presentation: 11:00am Union E260
Language learners, both children (L1) and adults (L2), internalize what is termed a “learner language”, i.e., an intermediate system learners use to produce and understand utterances of the language being learned. This paper reports on a study of one such L2 learner language that exhibits a pattern of devoicing. Devoicing refers to a pronunciation pattern whereby consonants normally pronounced as voiced (with vocal cord vibration, such as “b, d, and g”) are pronounced as voiceless (without vocal cord vibration, as with corresponding “p, t, and k”). This pattern is independent of both the learner’s native language (NL) and the target language (TL), but is nevertheless attested in many other languages of the world. The L2 devoicing pattern is seen when several native speakers of Spanish pronounce English “big” as “bik” with a final “k”, and render “Bob” as “bop” with a final “p”. Evidence that these final sounds have been devoiced comes from the learners’ correct pronunciation of “bigger” with a voiced medial (middle of the word) “g” and “Bobby” with a voiced medial “b”. Such a devoicing pattern is not part of learners’ NL, Spanish, as words pronounced with a final “k” or “p” are absent in Spanish, nor is the pattern part of the TL, English. Interestingly, this devoicing pattern is attested in many of the world’s languages, including Russian, as seen in the pronunciation “kruk” (circle) and “krugi” (circles), as well as in “rap” (slave) and “rabu” (slaves). The “poverty of the stimulus” describes the creativity of learners innovating beyond the absence (poverty) of the NL-TL patterns, and also beyond the TL input (stimulus), thereby producing patterns that are independent of both NL and TL. The proposed explanation for this learner pattern is that intermediate learner languages obey universal principles of phonology that also govern native languages.