How does cross-linguistic similarity influence Russian sound acquisition

Cross-linguistic similarity significantly influences Russian sound acquisition, especially in second language (L2) and heritage language (HL) contexts. When learners’ native or previously acquired languages share phonetic or phonological features with Russian, this similarity generally facilitates the acquisition of Russian sounds. However, when sounds are perceptually similar but not identical across languages, learners may face challenges discriminating and accurately producing Russian sounds.

Key insights include:

• According to the Speech Learning Model (SLM), sounds in Russian that are perceptually close to a learner’s first language (L1) sounds can be harder to acquire because they are assimilated to existing categories, leading to difficulties in distinguishing distinct Russian phonemes. For example, Chinese learners found Russian voiced stops highly similar to Mandarin voiceless stops, which made acquisition challenging. ¹

• Cross-linguistic influence (CLI) plays a major role in heritage Russian speakers’ pronunciation and phonological maintenance. CLI may maintain or alter HL grammars depending on linguistic similarity and input levels from the HL and the societal language. ²

• Language learners also show patterns of defaulting to unmarked or simpler sound forms when cross-linguistic discrepancies exist or input is reduced, affecting Russian sound acquisition. ²

• Research on multilingual speakers suggests that when a sound in Russian is treated as new (due to lack of similar L1 sounds), production tends to be more accurate (target-like), showing easier acquisition of phonetically distinct sounds versus highly similar but non-identical ones. ³

• Phonological transfer in classroom or L3 settings shows that prior knowledge of phonetic and phonological systems in learners’ other languages influences their acquisition of Russian sounds and pronunciation. ⁴

In summary, cross-linguistic similarity facilitates acquisition when sounds are clearly shared or closely corresponding between Russian and a learner’s known languages, but similarity that leads to phonetic confusion can pose challenges. The degree of similarity, input quality and quantity, and the linguistic context all shape how Russian sounds are acquired by multilingual learners. ^{1, 3, 4, 2}

References

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