Congratulations to Dr Kate Margetson who has just had this paper accepted for publication
Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2025). Cross-linguistic transfer in Vietnamese-English speech. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.
Here is the abstract
Purpose
Typically developing multilingual children’s speech may include mismatches and phonological patterns that are atypical in monolingual peers. One possible reason for mismatches is cross-linguistic transfer, when structures unique to one language are used while speaking another language. This study explored cross-linguistic transfer in Vietnamese-English–speaking children’s and adults’ speech at phoneme and syllable levels.
Method
Children (n = 66) aged between 2;0 and 8;10 and adult family members (n = 83) completed single word speech assessments in Vietnamese and English. Cross-linguistic transfer of non-shared consonants was analyzed in terms of frequency, patterns and direction of transfer. Syllable structure patterns in English consonant clusters (cluster reduction, cluster simplification, epenthesis) were identified, as consonant clusters do not occur in Vietnamese.
Results
Cross-linguistic transfer of non-shared consonants occurred in most children’s speech at least twice (75.76%; n = 66), tended to happen when the target was non-shared and occurred at a low frequency. During Vietnamese speech assessment, 21.82% of children’s and 26.30% of adults’ mismatches were due to cross-linguistic transfer of English consonants. During English speech assessment, 2.84% of children’s and 24.33% of adults’ mismatches were due to cross-linguistic transfer of Vietnamese consonants. Direction of cross-linguistic transfer was significantly associated with children’s age and language proficiency. Bi-directional cross-linguistic transfer only occurred in the youngest children (2;6 - 4;5 years). English consonant clusters were impacted by syllable structure patterns for both children (35.76%) and adults (22.95%), indicating these mismatches in Vietnamese-English-speaking children’s speech may be due to development, cross-linguistic transfer of Vietnamese syllable structure to English and/or ambient phonology.
Conclusions
Cross-linguistic transfer occurred in Vietnamese-English–speaking children’s and adults’ speech. These findings highlight the importance of assessing multilingual children’s speech in each language, considering interaction between languages, and identifying reasons for mismatches to ensure accurate diagnosis.
