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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 10:1 (2020) ► pp.109–151

The influence of the native language on phonological preparation in spoken word production in a second language

ORCID logo | University of California, San Diego
| University of Pennsylvania | Amazon Web Services, Seattle
| University of Maryland, College Park

Three experiments investigated the phonological preparation unit in planning English spoken words, comparing English monolinguals, native Chinese and Japanese-speakers who spoke English as their second language. All three groups named pictures in English, and the names could either share the same initial phoneme, mora, or syllable, or had no systematic commonality. A phoneme preparation effect was shown among English monolinguals but not among the two bilingual groups, suggesting that the phoneme is the phonological preparation unit for English monolinguals, but not for the two bilingual groups. All three groups showed mora and syllable preparation effects, but further analysis and a follow-up experiment suggested that Chinese-English bilinguals may treat morae as open syllables. English monolinguals showed similar phoneme and mora preparation effect sizes, possibly as a result of flexibility. Together, the selection of phonological preparation could be flexible, influenced by both the nature of the target language and speakers’ language experiences.

Keywords: phonological preparation, language production, bilinguals
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Cross-linguistic differences in the preferred preparation unit
      • 1.1.1Germanic languages
      • 1.1.2Mandarin chinese
      • 1.1.3Japanese
    • 1.2Flexibility in phonological preparation in L1
    • 1.3The phonological preparation unit in a second language (L2)
    • 1.4The present study
  • 2.Experiment 1: The role of phoneme in phonological preparation
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Design and materials
    • 2.3Procedure
    • 2.4Results and discussion
  • 3.Experiment 2a: The role of mora in phonological preparation
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Design, materials and procedure
    • 3.3Results and discussion
  • 4.Experiment 2b: The role of mora with legal coda in Mandarin
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Design, materials and procedure
    • 4.3Results and discussion
  • 5.Experiment 3: The role of syllable in phonological preparation
    • 5.1Design, materials and procedure
    • 5.2Results and discussion
  • 6.General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.16027.li
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