Lexical-phonological interactions in bilingual children

Abstract

This study examined lexical-phonological interactions in the first 50 words of a group of monolingual German- and Spanish-speaking children and bilingual German–Spanish children. The phonological characteristics of the earliest target word forms and output patterns of these children were analyzed to determine whether bilingual children select different target word forms and produce different output forms and templates than monolingual children. Results indicated that the target word forms selected by Spanish-speaking children differed from German-speaking children but not the target word forms of monolingual versus bilingual children. Output forms differed between monolingual German and Spanish children but did not differ greatly between the two languages of the bilingual children. The output patterns of bilingual children also differed from those of monolingual children. Bilingual children’s earliest words contained more /l/s and variegated place and their templates were characterized by more mature phonological forms. These patterns were interpreted as being due to cross-linguistic interaction or to a more general effect of bilingualism, which leads to increased phonetic-phonological sophistication.