Categorical speech perception in bilinguals: a review on previous research and an experimental proposal

Throssell, Michelle

Categorical speech perception in bilinguals: a review on previous research and an experimental proposal

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Throssell, M. Categorical speech perception in bilinguals: a review on previous research and an experimental proposal. 2020. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46182

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Abstract

The study of the acquisition of categorical perception of speech has a complex trajectory. A large number of factors must be taken into account, and those are often impossible to control. Earlier research used to focus primarily on the first steps of language acquisition in monolinguals, while in recent years the study of the same abilities in bilinguals has been preferred. The methodology for assessing the discrimination capacity between contrastive sound pairs has also transformed drastically. Regarding the determining factors for the phonetic contrast differentiation task, new possibilities are added in each study, especially in the bilingual spectrum. In bilingual research, not only the frequency of each sound in everyday language has to be taken into consideration, but also the proportionality of each language in everyday life. In the present work, I review less studied factors proposed by different researchers as possible variables influencing bilingual discrimination, such as the ratio of cognates shared by many language pairs and the nature of the contrastive sounds to be evaluated. Finally, I offer an experimental proposal to study the development of this phenomenon in bilinguals who differ in the number of cognates shared by their two native languages.