Inter-language interference in VOT production by L2-dominant bilinguals: Asymmetries in phonetic code-switching

Abstract

Speech production research has demonstrated that the first language (L1) often interferes with production in bilinguals’ second language (L2), but it has been suggested that bilinguals who are L2-dominant are the most likely to suppress this L1-interference. While prolonged contextual changes in bilinguals’ language use (e.g., stays overseas) are known to result in L1 and L2 phonetic shifts, code-switching provides the unique opportunity of observing the immediate phonetic effects of L1-L2 interaction. We measured the voice onset times (VOTs) of Greek–English bilinguals’ productions of /b, d, p, t/ in initial and medial contexts, first in either a Greek or English unilingual mode, and in a later session when they produced the same target pseudowords as a code-switch from the opposing language. Compared to a unilingual mode, all English stops produced as code-switches from Greek, regardless of context, had more Greek-like VOTs. In contrast, Greek stops showed no shift toward English VOTs, with the exception of medial voiced stops. Under the specifically interlanguage condition of code-switching we have demonstrated a pervasive influence of the L1 even in L2-dominant individuals.

The role of code-switching and language context in bilingual phonetic transfer

“…Spanish to English), parallels the most common finding in the previous literature. This short to long lag transfer has been previously found for speakers dominant in long lag languages (Antoniou et al 2011, Bullock et al 2006 and dominant in short lag languages (Bullock et al 2006), and has been found in both laboratory speech and natural speech contexts (Balukas & Koops 2015). These results, both from the current study and previous literature, seem to find explanation in the previous suggestion (Bullock et al 2006) that long lag languages, with significantly greater acceptable VOT ranges (e.g.…”

“…Hypothesis: Drawing on the previous literature (Antoniou et al 2011, Bullock et al 2006, Bullock & Toribio 2009, it is anticipated that code-switching will impact phonetic production. Furthermore, although bi-directional transfer is possible (e.g.…”

Global foreign accent rating of code-switched and L2-only sentences

“…They tested the relationship between VOT of initial voiceless stops and the time that elapsed from the moment of switching. The study yielded an asymmetrical result for the long-lag English versus the short-lag Spanish stops, in line with Bullock et al (2006) and Antoniou et al (2011). For all three English voiceless stops VOT values increased, i.e.…”

“…Antoniou, Best, Tyler & Kroos 2011;Bullock, Toribio, González & Dalola 2006;Bullock & Toribio 2009;González López 2012;Simonet 2014;Balukas & Koops 2014;Piccinini & Arvaniti 2015) examine immediate L1 use as a source of short-term performance interference, which may occur when a bilingual speaker performs in the bilingual language mode, alternating between languages as in the context of bilingual codeswitching. In their experimental design such studies concentrate on withinsubject comparisons of L2 productions elicited in the single-language and in the bilingual modes in order to trace dynamic changes in the degree of interference as they might take place in real time.…”

Editors' introduction

“…In addition to the ten papers published in the first volume of this journal dedicated to this conference (issue 2.1), two further papers presented at the conference (Tilsen [2011] and Walker and Hay [2011]) were published earlier in the Laboratory Phonology journal and another, Antoniou et al (2011), has appeared in the Journal of Phonetics. Although we are, of course, as co-organizers of the conference, decidedly biased, we nonetheless consider this publication record i mpressive, and indicative of the quality of the conference itself.…”