Sviluppo fonetico e fonologico del bambino bilingue

In the light of prototype theory and of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on bilinguals’ phonetic and phonological systems, the present article discusses the developmental aspects of L1 and L2 perception and production, with particular reference to vowels, as vowels are inherently more susceptible to modification or cross-language influence than consonants. It then investigates what happens in monolingual and bilingual infant minds before the age of three, identifying the mechanisms which enable young children to learn how to “translate” perceived acoustic (i.e. physical) sounds into linguistic items and to produce them correctly in L1 and L2. At last the paper describes the phonetic and phonological development of a particular case of “late” early German-Italian bilingualism, in a child raised bilingually after the age of three, when still at a pre-school age but after having reached a high level of phonetic and phonological competence in L1 on which a “new” (L2-specific) sound-system is being built.