Bilinguals are able to speak and listen in either of their languages, but one of the most salient features of their speech is "code switching," the alternation between languages within the same utterance. This research will examine the phonetics of code switching to address the fundamental issue of how bilinguals maintain competing languages in the brain. One focus of the research is the impact of language mode, the speech continuum from monolingual to bilingual along which bilinguals operate. Previous research on the phonetics of code switching has produced divergent results, possibly due to the lack of attention to the language mode variable. The research hypothesis is that code switches produced in a more monolingual mode may differ from those produced in a more bilingual mode.
Switching between languages has a reaction time cost. Psycholinguistic studies have used cued switching paradigms to examine these reaction time costs. Results provide experimental evidence for theories of the cognitive mechanisms governing language switching (e.g. Inhibitory Control). Although prior research has focused exclusively on the impact of language switching at the word level, a comprehensive theory of language switching mechanisms must also account for influence at the phonetic level. This research project will investigate the phonetics of language switching, testing the hypothesis that phonetic production may vary as a function of reaction time costs. Early Spanish-English bilinguals from the surrounding local community will participate in a series of experiments, including both a more naturalistic oral production paradigm, as well as a cued switching paradigm. Many participants will be first generation university students who represent a large but vastly under-researched population where bilingualism and language switching are the norm.
" has produced several intellectual contributions to the field of Bilingualism, as well as in the areas of Phonetics and Psycholinguistics. First and foremost, this research has demonstrated that the selection of one of a bilingual's two languages occurs not categorically, but a gradient, flexible manner. Depending on a given context or conversation (i.e. Language Mode/ Language Context), either monolingual or balanced bilingual, bilingual speakers modulate the degree of availability of their two languages. This gradient level of availability, or conversely the gradient level of inhibition, was found to function at both the word level and the sound level. At the word, or lexical level, bilingual participants demonstrated a difference in reaction times for accessing a word in monolingual and bilingual context. At the sound, or phonetic level, bilinguals showed a shift in their pronunciation, namely segmental phonetic productions, depending on the context. The second most salient intellectual conversation comes from the demonstrated asymmetrical nature of phonetic access in bilingual populations. Previous research has shown that when switching languages, bilinguals are slower when switching in to their more dominant language. The current study extended these findings into the phonetic realm, showing that not only are speaker slower in accessing their dominant language, the pronunciation of their dominant language is more susceptible to influence from the pronunciation norms of their less dominant language (i.e. L2 to L1 phonetic transfer. These findings offer crucial insights into the bilingual language separation mechanisms, and will certainly influence the study of bilingualism and bilingual phonetics. These findings have been formalized in a doctoral dissertation entitled "Bilingual Language Contexts: Variable language switching costs and phonetic production." In addition, portions of this research have been presented at several national and international conferences (International Symposium on Bilingualism, Hispanic Linguistic Symposium, Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology), and several article manuscripts are in preparation for submission to peer reviewed journals. With respect to the broader impacts of the project, the most salient, long-term contribution of this work is to actively counter the stereotypical notion that bilinguals speak "corrupted versions" of their two languages. By demonstrating the systematic, biologically-based nature of their speech patterns, this work contributes to the mainstream acceptance of bilingual speech variations. In addition, nearly 60 members of an academically underrepresented group (Spanish-English bilinguals; Hispanic/Latinos) participated in this project, with many of them being first generation college students. Their participation, and subsequent debriefing, represents an important opportunity for them to have hands-on experience in the research process, which may not have occurred otherwise.
