The perception of language-specific phonetic categories does not guarantee accurate phonological representations in the lexicon of early bilinguals

Abstract

This study examines the perception and processing of the Catalan /e/-/ɛ/ and /o/-/ɔ/ vowel contrasts by 60 Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Results from binary forced-choice identification, AX discrimination, and lexical decision tasks show that even though these early and highly proficient bilinguals demonstrate a high accuracy in perceptual identification and discrimination tasks, they have difficulties distinguishing between words and nonwords in a lexical decision task. Spanish dominants also exhibited higher error rates than Catalan dominants in the lexical decision task. These findings provide evidence that making explicit judgments regarding whether a certain sound belongs to a phonemic category (i.e., as accomplished via identification and discrimination tasks) does not entail that listeners have an appropriate representation at the lexical level.

Language dominance and the perception of the Majorcan Catalan /ʎ/−/ʒ/ contrast: Asymmetrical phonological representations

“…This was examined directly in one of the experimental conditions in our study, the one that investigated the [ʎ]-[ʒ] distinction. These findings are consistent with comparable studies that have examined how Catalan-Spanish bilinguals perceive Catalan-specific phonemic contrasts, both on Majorca and in Barcelona (Amengual, 2016a(Amengual, , 2016bBosch et al, 2000;Mora & Nadeu, 2012;Navarra et al, 2005;Pallier et al, 1997;Sebastián-Gallés & Soto-Faraco, 1999;Simonet, 2014) . These studies, among others, have been fundamental in articulating the scientific view that early linguistic experience is a decisive determinant of phonemic and phonetic learning (or lack thereof).…”

“…The classification of the participants in language-dominance groups was done with the assistance of a language background questionnaire, the bilingual language profile (BLP) of Birdsong, Gertken, and Amengual (2012) . This questionnaire has been used in prior work to assess language-dominance patterns in the Catalan-Spanish contact community (Amengual, 2016a(Amengual, , 2016bSimonet, 2014) . The BLP produces a dominance score and a general bilingual profile for each participant.…”

“…We close our Results section with an analysis of discrimination accuracy in which dominance is a gradient factor, operationalized as the BLP score obtained for each participant. We follow the example of Amengual (2016aAmengual ( , 2016b and Amengual and Chamorro (2015) in doing so.…”

“…On Majorca, Catalan exists in an intensive and extensive contact with Spanish: Catalan-Spanish bilingualism is the norm rather than the exception, and most inhabitants of Majorca are very proficient in both languages, having learned both in childhood. A number of studies have demonstrated that the linguistic experience of Catalan-Spanish bilinguals -whether Catalan is their dominant or, rather, their nondominant language -modulates the way speakers produce and perceive the sounds of Majorcan Catalan (Amengual, 2016a(Amengual, , 2016bSimonet, 2011Simonet, , 2014 . The present study is concerned with a consonantal contrast of Majorcan Catalan, that between /ʎ/ and /ʒ/, which has no direct equivalent in Spanish.…”

Unstressed Vowel Reduction Across Majorcan Catalan Dialects: Production and Spoken Word Recognition

“…Importantly, the acoustic studies of Recasens and Espinosa show that Majorcan Catalan /ɔ/ is lower -and /a/ is more fronted -than that of the mainland dialects. 4 SeeAmengual (2016aAmengual ( , 2016b andSimonet (2010Simonet ( , 2011aSimonet ( , 2011b for an account of the effects of Catalan-Spanish bilingualism on some of the phonetic structures of Majorcan Catalan.…”