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Article
Spanish-English speech perception in children and adults: Developmental trends.
USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
  • Alejandro E. Brice
  • Brenda K. Gorman
  • Cynthia B. Leung, University of South Florida St. Petersburg
SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

Alejandro Brice

Cynthia B. Leung

Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
Abstract

This study explored the developmental trends and phonetic category formation in bilingual children and adults. Participants included 30 fluent Spanish–English bilingual children, aged 8–11, and bilingual adults, aged 18– 40. All completed gating tasks that incorporated code-mixed Spanish–English stimuli. There were significant differences in performance according to phonotactic construction of the stimuli, with fastest word recognition on words with voiceless initial consonants. Analysis of developmental trends revealed significant differences in children’s performance by grade level and fastest recognition on English voiceless initial consonants than Spanish voiceless initial consonants. Differences in voice onset time between English and Spanish may have contributed to quicker recognition of English voiceless consonants than Spanish voiceless consonants. It is also possible that increased exposure to both spoken and written English may account for faster recognition of English voiceless words than Spanish voiceless words. In conclusion, multiple factors may influence perception of a second language.

Comments

Abstract only. At this time, full-text article is available only through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 27(3), 220-234. doi 10.3109/02699206.2012.757805. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.

Language
en_US
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
Citation Information
Brice, A.E., Gorman, B.K. & Leung, C.B. (2013). Spanish-English speech perception in children and adults: Developmental trends. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 27(3), 220-234. doi 10.3109/02699206.2012.757805