Spanish–English speech perception in children and adults: Developmental trends

Abstract

This study explored the developmental trends and phonetic category formation in bilingual children and adults. Participants included 30 fluent Spanish-English bilingual children, aged 8-11, and bilingual adults, aged 18-40. All completed gating tasks that incorporated code-mixed Spanish-English stimuli. There were significant differences in performance according to phonotactic construction of the stimuli, with fastest word recognition on words with voiceless initial consonants. Analysis of developmental trends revealed significant differences in children's performance by grade level and fastest recognition on English voiceless initial consonants than Spanish voiceless initial consonants. Differences in voice onset time between English and Spanish may have contributed to quicker recognition of English voiceless consonants than Spanish voiceless consonants. It is also possible that increased exposure to both spoken and written English may account for faster recognition of English voiceless words than Spanish voiceless words. In conclusion, multiple factors may influence perception of a second language.

Automaticity of speech processing in early bilingual adults and children

“…However, language history of children reported by parents/guardians is more immediate and likely to be more accurate. Previous studies indicate that adult and child bilinguals do not necessarily show the same pattern of processing compared to monolingual age-matched participants (Baker et al, 2008;Brice, Gorman & Leung, 2013;Rinker, Shafer, Kiefer, Vidal & Yu, 2017;Tong, Lee, Lee & Burnham, 2015). For example, children who begin learning the L2 before five years of age may still demonstrate differences from monolinguals and these differences may be related to insufficient input.…”

Neural Activation in Bilinguals and Monolinguals Using a Word Identification Task

“…Brice and Brice (2008) also showed that bilingual speakers identified voiced initial consonant sounds quicker than initial voiceless consonants (e.g., /b/ vs. /p/). Brice et al (2013) found that children and adult bilinguals were faster in recognizing voiceless English consonants than Spanish-voiceless consonants. The inclusion of children in this study may have altered perception patterns from those observed among strictly adults in the earlier Brice and Brice (2008) study.…”

“…Age of acquisition and LoR are used to make distinctions regarding the amount of L2 language exposure (i.e., early, middle, and late bilingualism). While estimates vary somewhat within the literature, Brice et al (2013) defined early bilingualism as L2 onset between birth and 8 years of age, middle bilingualism between 9 and 15 years of age, and late bilingualism after 16 years of age. The study of speech perception and production through the lens of AoA and LoR can offer observable data on how individuals from the three bilingual age groups compare to monolinguals.…”

“…Fewer studies have focused on how code-mixing might affect speech perception in bilingual individuals, particularly in relation to monolingual individuals (Brice et al 2013). The issue of English language proficiency among Spanish-English bilingual speakers cannot be made unless they are compared to monolingual speakers.…”

“…The phonetic frequency of such sounds may have influenced the results of Brice et al (2013). To give an example, high-frequency sounds are those that occur often in a language and are thus more easily recognizable (Metsala 1997).…”