Abstract
The time course and trajectory of development of phonetic perception in Spanish–Catalan bilingual and monolingual infants is different ( Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés, 2003a, 2003b, 2005; Sebastián-Gallés & Bosch, 2009). Bosch and Sebastián-Gallés argue that, at least initially, bilingual infants track statistical regularities across the two languages, leading to their temporary inability to discriminate acoustically similar phonetic categories. In this paper, we test bilingual Spanish–English 4- and 8-month-olds’ discrimination of vowels. Results indicate that, when the two languages being learned are rhythmically dissimilar, bilingual infants are able to discriminate acoustically similar vowel contrasts that are phonemic in one, but not the other language, at an earlier age. These results substantiate a mechanism of language tagging or sorting; such a mechanism is likely to help bilingual infants calculate statistics separately for the two languages.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
