The use of spectral information at vowel onset, which constitutes a stronger cue to the voicing contrast in English than in French, was investigated in French-English bilinguals in order to determine whether the primary language in terms of early experience determines acoustic cue weighting. The /pεn/-/bεn/ minimal pair, meaningful in both languages, was used as a base for identification tests, which were presented with either an English or a French precursor word before each token. Two stimulus continua, formed of digitally-edited natural speech tokens, had an identical VOT range but varied in their [εn] stem. In their production of the contrast, bilinguals showed clear evidence of code-switching but did not always produce monolingual-like VOTs in their weaker language. In perception, the code-switching effect was significant but small. The bilingual group with English as primary early language showed a greater effect of vowel onset characteristics, in conflictingcue conditions, than the bilingual group with French as their primary early language, and, on average, cue-weighting was not affected by the language of the precursor. An effect of language dominance on cue-weighting was therefore found.
Bohn, O.S., and Flege, J.E. (in press). Perceptual switching in Spanish/English bilinguals: Evidence for universal factors in stop voicing judgments. Journal of Phonetics.
2.
Caramazza, A., and Yeni-Komshian, G.H. (1974). Voice onset time in two French dialects. Journal of Phonetics, 2, 239–245.
3.
Caramazza, A., Yeni-Komshian, G.H., Zurif, E.B., and Carbone, E. (1973). The acquisition of a new phonological contrast: The case of stop consonants in French-English bilinguals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 54, 421–428.
4.
Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., and Segui, J. (1989). Limits on bilingualism. Nature, 340, 229–230.
5.
Eimas, P.D., Siqueland, E.R., Juszcyk, P., and Vigorito, J. (1971). Speech perception in early infancy. Science,1971, 303–306.
6.
Elman, J.L., Diehl, R.L., and Buchwald, S.E. (1977). Perceptual switching in bilinguals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 62, 971–974.
7.
Flege, J.E. (1989). Chinese subjects' perception of the word-final English /t/-/d/ contrast: Performance before and after training. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 86, 1684–1697.
8.
Flege, J.E. (1991). Age of learning affects the authenticity of voice onset time (VOT) in stop consonants produced in a second language. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 89, 395–411.
9.
Flege, J.E., and Eefting, W. (1987). Cross-language switching in stop consonant perception and production by Dutch speakers of English. Speech Communication, 6, 185–202.
10.
Flege, J.E., and Wang, C. (1991). Native-language phonotactic constraints affect how well Chinese subjects perceive the word-final /t/-/d/ contrast. Journal of Phonetics, 17, 299–315.
11.
Finney, D.J. (1952). Probit Analysis.Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
12.
Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with Two Languages.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
13.
Haggard, M., Ambler, S., and Callow, M. (1969). Pitch as a voicing cue. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 47, 613–617.
14.
Hazan, V. (1989). Individual variability in the perception of cues to place and voicing contrasts in initial stops. Speech, Hearing and Language: UCL Work in Progress (University College London), 3, 123–142.
15.
Hazan, V., and Rosen, S. (1991). Individual variability in the perception of cues to place contrasts in initial stops. Perception & Psychophysics, 49, 187–200.
16.
Liberman, A.M., Delattre, P.C., and Cooper, F.S. (1958). Some cues for the distinction between voiced and voiceless stops in initial position. Language and Speech, 1, 153–167.
17.
Lisker, L. (1975). Is it VOT or a first formant transition detector? Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 57, 1547–1551.
18.
Lisker, L., and Abramson, A. (1964). A cross-language study of voicing in initial stops: Acoustical measurements. Word, 20, 384–422.
19.
Lisker, L., and Abramson, A.S. (1970). The voicing dimension: Some experiments in comparative phonetics. Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Prague, 1967 (pp. 563–567). Prague: Academic.
20.
Mack, M. (1989). Consonant and vowel perception and production: Early English-French bilinguals and English monolinguals. Perception & Psychophysics, 46, 187–200.
21.
Payne, C.D. (ed.) (1985). The GLIM System Release 3.77 Manual --- Edition 2.Oxford: Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd.
22.
Pisoni, D.B., Logan, J.S., and Lively, S.E. (1989). Perceptual learning of non-native speech contrasts: Implications for theories of speech perception. Research on Speech Perception: Progress Report (Indiana University), 15, 3–57.
23.
Repp, B.H. (1979). Relative amplitude of aspiration noise as a voicing cue for syllable-initial stop consonants. Language and Speech, 22, 173–189.
24.
Serniclaes, W. (1984). Fenêtre de prelèvement temporel des indices d'occlusives. 13Èmes Journées d'étude sur la parole, Bruxelles (pp. 69--78).
25.
Serniclaes, W. (1987). Etude expérimentale de la perception du trait de voisement des occlusives du français.Thèse de doctorat en sciences psychologiques: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
26.
Simon, C., and Fourcin, A. (1978). Cross-language study of speech-pattern learning. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 63, 925–935.
27.
Stevens, K.N., and Klatt, D.H. (1974). Role of formant transitions in the voiced-voiceless distinction for stops. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 55, 653–659.
28.
Summerfield, A.Q. (1981). Articulatory rate and perceptual constancy in phonetic perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7, 1074–1095.
29.
Trehub, S.E. (1976). The discrimination of foreign speech contrasts by infants and adults. Child Development, 47, 466–472.
30.
Underbakke, M., Polka, L., Gottfried, T.L., and Strange, W. (1988). Trading relations in the perception of /r/-/l/ by Japanese learners of English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 84, 90–100.
31.
Werker, J.F., and Tees, R.C. (1984). Cross-language speech perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization during the first year of life. Infant Behavior & Development, 7, 49–63.
32.
Williams, L. (1977). The perception of stop consonant voicing by Spanish-English bilinguals. Perception & Psychophysics, 21, 289–297.
