L2 effects on the perception and production of a native vowel contrast in early bilinguals

Joan C. Mora ^[1] ; Marianna Nadeu ^[2]
1. [1] Universitat de Barcelona
  
  Universitat de Barcelona
  
  Barcelona, España
2. [2] University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
  
  University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
  
  Township of Cunningham, Estados Unidos
Localización: International Journal of Bilingualism: interdisciplinary studies of multilingual behaviour, ISSN 1367-0069, Vol. 16, Nº. 4, 2012, págs. 484-500
Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
- This study investigates the effect of L2 (Spanish) use on Catalan–Spanish bilinguals’ ability to accurately perceive and produce two contrastive native Catalan vowel categories, /e/ and /ε/. Participants were L1 Catalan highly proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals differing in amount of daily exposure/use of Catalan (low: 40%–70% vs. high: 80%–100%). Perceptual accuracy was assessed through speeded categorization and AXB discrimination tasks based on a 10-step vowel continuum (/e/–/ε/). Production accuracy was assessed by eliciting /ε/ tokens in Catalan cognate and noncognate words. The results indicated that participants using Spanish more frequently discriminated Catalan vowels /e/ and /ε/ less accurately and significantly more slowly and had a more Spanish-like acoustic target in the production of Catalan /ε/, particularly in cognate words. These results are consistent with the view that, in a language contact context, extensive L2 experience affects L1 sound categories.