Phonetic and phonological dimensions of accent change in bilinguals.

Abstract

The current study aimed to specify the phonetic and phonological dimensions along which accent change occurs in both languages in bilingual Spanish‐English speakers. Previous studies examining accent change have done so in a variety of contexts [e.g., Colantoni and Steele (2008); Marian et al. (2008); Flege et al. (2002); MacKay et al. (2001); Flege et al. (1997)]. We aimed to observe how various phonetic and phonological variables that have already been examined interact to contribute to accent change. Four experiments examining between‐language interaction on phonetic and phonological components focused on the following areas: (1) voice onset time (VOT) of initial voiceless consonants; (2) vowel space; (3) consonant manner classes, and (4) phonological changes that might be occurring cross‐linguistically. Fifteen bilingual Spanish‐English speakers, 10 monolingual English speakers, and 10 monolingual Spanish speakers participated in the current study. Participants were engaged in four experiments that involved both perception and production tasks in both languages. The results of this study could supplement theories on between‐language interaction in second language learners. This interaction might shed light onto how rules of L1 might contribute to accent change in L2, and how language attrition might contribute to accent change.