Phonotactic Constraints Are Activated across Languages in Bilinguals.

Max R Freeman,Henrike K Blumenfeld,Viorica Marian

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00702

Max R Freeman, Henrike K Blumenfeld + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00702

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Abstract

During spoken language comprehension, auditory input activates a bilingual’s two languages in parallel based on phonological representations that are shared across languages. However, it is unclear whether bilinguals access phonotactic constraints from the non-target language during target language processing. For example, in Spanish, words with s+ consonant onsets cannot exist, and phonotactic constraints call for epenthesis (addition of a vowel, e.g., stable/estable). Native Spanish speakers may produce English words such as estudy (“study”) with epenthesis, suggesting that these bilinguals apply Spanish phonotactic constraints when speaking English. The present study is the first to examine whether bilinguals access Spanish phonotactic constraints during English comprehension. In an English cross-modal priming lexical decision task, Spanish–English bilinguals and English monolinguals heard English cognate and non-cognate primes containing s+ consonant onsets or controls without s+ onsets, followed by a lexical decision on visual targets with the /e/ phonotactic constraint or controls without /e/. Results revealed that bilinguals were faster to respond to /es/ non-word targets preceded by s+ cognate primes and /es/ and /e/ non-word targets preceded by s+ non-cognate primes, confirming that English primes containing s+ onsets activated Spanish phonotactic constraints. These findings are discussed within current accounts of parallel activation of two languages during bilingual spoken language comprehension, which may be expanded to include activation of phonotactic constraints from the irrelevant language.

Highlights

Across many contexts and discourse situations, bilinguals activate both languages simultaneously, even when only one language is used overtly, a phenomenon known as parallel activation (e.g., Green, 1998; Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002; Blumenfeld and Marian, 2007; Kroll et al, 2008; Shook and Marian, 2013)
We examined lexical decision accuracy, expecting that decisions on non-words would be less accurate than on real words based on previous research
We examined whether monolinguals would be faster overall in their lexical decision response rates than bilinguals, as bilinguals were performing a lexical decision in their L2 (Dijkstra et al, 1999)

Summary

Introduction

Across many contexts and discourse situations, bilinguals activate both languages simultaneously, even when only one language is used overtly, a phenomenon known as parallel activation (e.g., Green, 1998; Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002; Blumenfeld and Marian, 2007; Kroll et al, 2008; Shook and Marian, 2013). While word-initial s+ consonant clusters are legal in English, a phonotactic constraint for Spanish is that s+ consonant clusters cannot exist at word onsets and an epenthetic /e/ (i.e., the addition of a vowel) must be added to render the word acceptable in Spanish. This incongruence between phonotactic constraints in the L1 and L2 might result in Spanish-like pronunciations and perceptions of English words during spoken word production and comprehension (e.g., stable, Spanish: estable)

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