Transferring perceptual cue-weighting from second language into first language: Cues to voicing in Russian speakers of English

Abstract

Does second language experience affect first language perception? The present paper addresses this question in a study of bilingual cue weighting with a focus on perceptual cues that are of markedly different importance for the corresponding monolingual groups. The study investigates the use of vowel duration and glottal pulsing duration as cues to stop voicing by adult Russian speakers of English, long-term residents of the USA, (n = 37, average age 38.8 years), as well as a control group of monolingual Russians, recruited and tested in Russia, (n = 34, average age 26.1 years) and a control group of monolingual English speakers, recruited and tested in the USA, (n = 34, average age 21.7 years). Participants took part in a binary-choice voicing identification experiment using resynthesized real-word stimuli recorded by native speakers of each language. The stimuli varied orthogonally in terms of preceding vowel duration and duration of glottal pulsing during stop closure. Results demonstrate that monolingual English participants assigned a greater perceptual weight to vowel duration and a lesser perceptual weight to glottal pulsing than monolingual Russian participants. Bilinguals also used different cue weighting depending on the language mode. Bilinguals’ cue weighting in English mode was not statistically different from that of monolingual English participants. Bilinguals’ cue weighting in Russian mode showed an increased reliance on vowel duration and a decreased reliance on glottal pulsing, compared to monolingual Russians, indicating the influence of English. These findings demonstrate that second language experience affects cue weighting patterns in bilinguals’ first language.