Doctoral Dissertation Research: Perception and Production Profiles of Bilingual Speakers

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

How do bilingual speakers produce speech sounds in both their languages? How do these same speakers perceive these sounds? Under the direction of Dr. Carol Stoel-Gammon, Ms. Andrea Macleod will study the phonological systems of two groups of adult Canadian French-English bilinguals: bilinguals who acquire both languages prior to the age of 5 and bilinguals who acquired their second language between the ages of 6 and 12 years. This dissertation project will advance our understanding of multilingual language competence. The phonological abilities of bilingual adults is thought to differ from those of monolinguals due to the pressures to sound like a native speaker in two different language communities, and the pressure to reduce the processing load of having to master these different phonological systems. Research has shown that the differences in how these opposing pressures impact bilinguals are due to a number of factors such as the age of acquisition, the language learning environments, and the environments for ongoing language use. However, only a few models exist that predict the course of bilingual phonological acquisition: Kuhl's native language magnet model (1993); Best's perceptual assimilation model (1994); and Flege's speech learning model (1995). These models present testable hypotheses that will be evaluated in the proposed research project. Although bilinguals make up the majority of the world's population, the study of bilingual language abilities are only targeted in a small body of research. Despite demographic changes within North America and around the world, the study of speech production and perception has focused on monolingual speakers, English ones in particular, within the field of linguistics, speech-language sciences, and psychology. Research in bilingual speech production and perception will shed light on how individuals learning a second language balance two opposing pressures: the pressure to maximize phonetic contrasts which stems from the need to sound like a native speaker of two different language communities; and the pressure to minimize phonetic contrasts stemming from the need to reduce the processing load of mastering two phonetic and phonological systems. This project will contribute to our current understanding of teaching second language pronunciation by gaining a better understanding of how age of language learning and language use impact the phonological system (speech-sound system)