Speech learning in bilinguals: Consonant cluster acquisition

Robert Mayr, Danna Jones, Ineke Mennen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A key issue in the study of bilingual speech learning is to understand along which phonetic and phonological dimensions languages can systematically differ, and how such differences are generated in speech production, evaluated in speech perception and ultimately acquired by those learning to speak two (or more) languages. Identifying these dimensions is important as it will lead to a better understanding of how bilinguals manage two – partially competing – sound systems. This, in turn, will help identify what is learned phonetic behaviour and inform models of phonetic/phonological representation. Many studies have shown that one of the consequences of bilinguals having to manage or ‘juggle’ two competing sound systems is that their speech production differs at least to some extent from that of monolingual speakers in each language. We see such interaction between the two languages in bilinguals as a perfectly normal phenomenon resulting from language contact, and one that does not only occur in bilinguals who started learning a second language (L2) later in life (i.e. sequential or adult bilingualism) (e.g. Flege et al., 1995), but also in bilinguals whose exposure to both languages started at birth or soon thereafter (i.e. simultaneous or childhood bilingualism) (e.g. Kehoe, 2002).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAdvances in the Study of Bilingualism
PublisherChannel View Publications
Pages3-24
Number of pages22
ISBN (Electronic)9781783091713
ISBN (Print)9781783091706
Publication statusPublished - 9 May 2014

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