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

Abstract

The present study examines the effect of two potential catalysts for interlanguage phonetic interaction, code-switching and language mode, on the production of voice onset time (VOT) to better understand the role of (near) simultaneous dual language activation on phonetic production, as well as the nature of phonetic transfer. An oral production paradigm was carried out in which Spanish-English bilinguals produced words with initial voiceless stops as non-switched tokens, code-switched tokens in an otherwise monolingual context, and code-switched tokens in a bilingual context. Results demonstrated a degree of phonetic transfer associated with code-switching, either unidirectional or bi-directional. Specifically, English, with long lag VOT, was more susceptible to phonetic transfer than Spanish (short lag). Contrary to expectations, while the code-switching effect was present in both monolingual and bilingual mode, there was no additional transfer, or additive effect, of bilingual language mode. Differences in the effects of code-switching on English and Spanish are discussed with respect to the inherently different acceptable VOT ranges in the two languages. Furthermore, the lack of difference in VOT between the code-switched tokens in the monolingual and bilingual contexts is taken to suggest limits on phonetic transfer.

Impact of language dominance on phonetic transfer in Cantonese–English bilingual language switching

“…VOT, the time interval between the release of a plosive and the beginning of voicing of a following vowel (Lisker & Abramson, 1964), has been the focus of phonetic interaction studies because it embodies language-specific properties (e.g., Antoniou et al, 2011;Balukas & Koops, 2015;Goldrick et al, 2014;Olson, 2013Olson, , 2016Piccinini & Arvaniti, 2015). Specifically, VOT is an important acoustic correlate to the distinction of voiced-voiceless phonetic contrasts across the world's languages (Lisker & Abramson, 1964;Maddieson, 1984).…”

“…In this transient interface of phonetic interaction, the phonetic representations of both languages are activated and manipulated during online speech processing. It has been hypothesized that when speakers are using two languages in communication, the representations of both languages are activated simultaneously, creating competition between the two languages (Antoniou et al, 2011;Olson, 2016;Simonet, 2014). Research shows that, during online speech processing, the nontarget language imposes an impact on the target language, leading to a deviation of the target phonetic implementation toward the nontarget language (e.g., Antoniou et al, 2011;Goldrick et al, 2014;Olson, 2013Olson, , 2016Simonet, 2014).…”

“…Hong Kong Cantonese-English bilinguals provide a fascinating case to further examine the transient phonetic interaction in bilingual speech production. First, most previous studies have largely focused on bilinguals who speak two typologically similar languages within the Indo-European family, such as English and Spanish (e.g., Balukas & Koops, 2015;Goldrick et al, 2014;Olson, 2013Olson, , 2016Piccinini & Arvaniti, 2015) and English and Greek (Antoniou et al, 2011), so that they share linguistic similarities and have a large number of cognates in common. In the present study, Cantonese, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, shares very few linguistic commonalities with English in terms of phonology, lexicogrammar, and orthography (Li, 2017).…”

Patterns of Short-Term Phonetic Interference in Bilingual Speech

“…In contrast to the minimalistic stimuli used in Antoniou et al (2011), contextualizing texts were constructed in Olson (2016a), each ending in a sentence containing a p/t/k-initial target word, non-cognate in English and Spanish. To simulate variability along the monolingual-to-bilingual mode continuum, the target word was either in the same language as the rest of the text, or it was the only code-switch in an otherwise monolingual text, or it was preceded by several code-switches in a language-balanced bilingual text.…”

“…One-direction interpreting, however, also requires that only single-language utterances are produced, that is, no articulation of L1 sounds takes place. Thus, local phonetic interference of the kind observed in code-switching (e.g., Bullock et al 2006;Fricke et al 2016;Olson 2016a), whether anticipatory-i.e., induced by accessing post-switch phonetic forms while planning articulation of a pre-switch unit-or carry-over due to transfer of articulatory settings at the switch juncture, cannot occur. The phonetic cognate effect, evidenced in single-language psycholinguistic experiments, is also less likely in online Czech-to-English interpreting since, in general, the number of Czech-English cognates is limited and since specifically for the purposes of the current study, cognates were excluded.…”