Language background influences the emergence of voice onset time production and perception.

Abstract

This study investigates the production and perception of voice onset time (VOT) among preschool children who acquired English and French simultaneously compared to monolingual peers of these two languages. Children participated in this study at the age of 18 months and returned at 24 months for a second session. During each session the children took part in a visual habituation procedure to evaluate discrimination of VOT using edited natural /b/+ vowel and /p/ + vowel syllables in a task format developed by Houston et al. (2007) to assess individual performance. In this task, three VOT values (produced by several talkers) were presented to the children: one within adult norms of the language for voiced bilabial consonants; one within the adult norms of the language for voiceless bilabial consonants; and one between the means for the voiced and voiceless consonants. The children also participated in a structured play session, and their spontaneous productions of word initial stops were acoustically analyzed to measure VOT. Preliminary analysis indicates that accuracy in discriminating VOT precedes production of voicing contrasts for all groups, and monolinguals appear to have developed adultlike perception and production of voicing at a younger age than their bilingual peers.