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Hello! We are the authors of this padlet site. We are Bachelor's Degree students of English for Intercultural Communication in UiTM Shah Alam. This padlet page is an E-Portfolio assigned to us under ALS426 Language and Linguistics course. We aim to make a thorough research on Phonetics: Voiced and Voiceless sounds and Chilhood Bilingualism.

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It is proven that approximately half of the people in the world, especially continents such as Africa and Asia, are bilingual. A number of them are even multilingual in which they acquire more than two languages. In Western countries, the people (by no means all of them) often regard themselves as monolingual. Bilingualism, according to Uysal et al. (2016), is when a child is raised with two languages in which the child acquires competency in both languages and has mastered them. Therefore, to further emphasize, bilingualism happens at early stages of childhood as children often find it easier to develop language skills, thus creates the term “Childhood Bilingualism”.

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◇─ Examples of the Childhood Bilingualism 

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◇─ Examples of the Childhood Bilingualism 

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His nose if perdu.

(This indicates the use of French and English words in one sentence)

A house pink — A pink house

(This indicates the use of English words joined with a French syntax)

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According to Heath (2021), there are three types of bilingualism which are…

a)     Compound bilingual — an act of developing two language systems in a simultaneous way with a single context.

b)    Coordinate bilingual — an act of acquiring two different languages in distinctively separate contexts.

c)     Sub-coordinate bilingual — an act of learning the secondary language by filtering the mother tongue language.

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◇─ Perceptions on Childhood Bilingualism

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◇─ Perceptions on Childhood Bilingualism

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In the topic of acquiring two languages at early ages, people would typically question…

a)     How is it possible for a child to learn two languages at the same time?

b)    Doesn’t the child get confused when learning and using two languages?

c)     Does bilingualism acquisition take longer than monolingual acquisition?

d)    Does being bilingual either help or hinder the cognitive and academic development of the child?

e)    How much exposure to each language is necessary for a child to become bilingual?

During the early studies of bilingualism, many would perceive bilingual children as confused or having difficulty using two languages. Some parents would also take advices from educators or psychologists to avoid letting their children become bilingual. However, with more research done on this topic, it is proven to be normal to include some amount of language mixing in early childhood language acquisition.

In fact, a handful of researches also propose the fact that the act of language mixing is almost similar to the act of code-switching among adults. However, code-switching too, is definitely not ‘bad grammar’ or ‘broken English’ as others might perceive it. Instead, it is just an act of adapting the use of more than one language among bilinguals when conversing.

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Phonetics is the sounds of language where it studies how sounds are produced and perceived by humans.

The sound produced will be focused on the connection of vocal cords, teeth, tongue and mouth during the process of its production. Hence, the speech sounds are sorted and categorized in a table of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which helps in terms of pronunciation and how the sound of the alphabet is made.

Moreover, linguists are required to look at articulatory phonetics which involves the place of articulation, manner of articulation, voiced and voiceless sounds, etc.

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All sounds are either voiced or voiceless and all vowels are usually voiced. However, as for consonants, they can either be voiced or voiceless.

In this case, voiced sounds are produced when the vocal cords or vocal folds are together or touched, which create a vibration effect when the air forces its way through and out of the mouth.

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The letters b, d, g, j, l, m, n, ng, r, sz, th (e.g. 'th'is), v, w, y, z are voiced consonants.

The highlighted letters in the words vine, Ben, zoo are voiced.

To easily identify whether the words, consonants or vowels are voiced or voiceless, try touching your neck where the throat is to feel the presence or the absence of vibration when saying it aloud.

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As the name portrays, voiceless sounds make no obvious changes in terms of the vibration effect in the vocal cords. For consonants that are voiceless, the process of pronouncing the consonants are almost smooth as the air flows freely through the glottis (the opening between vocal cords) when the vocal cords are apart.

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The letters ch, h, f, k, p, s, sh, t, th ('th'ing) are voiceless consonants.

The highlighted letters in the words pen, Sue, fine, chalk are voiceless.

To determine the accuracy of the sounds whether it falls under voiced or voiceless, put a hand at your neck where the vocal cords are and pronounce the words, consonants or vowels to feel little to no vibration effect created.

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━ ꕥ Childhood Bilingualism: The Role of Input

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━ ꕥ Childhood Bilingualism: The Role of Input

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Despite the positive sides in childhood bilingualism, there are also many concerns among researches and as well as parents as to how the language input correlates with proficiency among children. What kind of role does an input play in making sure children can distinguish between the two languages used?

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The answer is… one input that has been traditionally introduced and widely used to promote bilingual development is une personne-une langue which means one person, one language. This is implemented in a way that the father of a child will speak one language and the mother will speak the latter. This way, there will be no confusion among the grammar structures and language system between the two languages as there is no influence of each language onto the other.

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However, the question whether this method is has contributed in bilingual development is yet to be proven. In fact, this idea might be difficult to attain.

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Another question and concern about the role of input is how much exposure is necessary for a child to be ‘native’ in both languages? It is quite prominent that if a child hears 12 hours of English and only 2 hours of French, the child will more likely to acquire English better, faster and more completely than French. However, less exposure of one language compared to the other can also contribute to a dual fluency, though one language may dominate to a lesser and greater degree. The only thing not definite is how much exposure is necessary for a balance dual fluency among these children. As of now, the rough assumption says that a child must receive an almost-equal amount of input to achieve native proficiency in both languages.

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A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation Table

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✩─ A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation Table

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✩─ A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation Table

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A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation