Speech Perception in Multilingual and Monolingual Listeners

Presenter

Emiliya Aleksanyan

Campus

UMass Amherst

Sponsor

Lisa Sanders, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, UMass Amherst

Schedule

Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board C24, Poster Showcase Room (163), Row 3 (C21-C30) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

Much of the research on speech perception focuses on monolingual speakers. However, most of the world’s population use at least two languages. This study explores the ways in which experience with multiple languages affects speech perception. In English, plural nouns typically end in /z/ (e.g., noun/z/), but depending on the phonological context might end in /s/ (e.g., book/s/) or /iz/ (e.g., wish/iz/). When rating the pronunciation of two-word phrases, monolingual English speakers prefer correct pluralizations (e.g., two hill/z/) over ones with the wrong plural ending for that context (e.g., two hill/s/). However, they also prefer the incorrect pluralization (e.g., two hill/s/) over nouns that end in a sound that is never used to make a noun plural (e.g., two hill/v/). Native English speakers who use multiple languages may be even more permissive in the sounds they accept as good pronunciations, or much less so. If multilingual speakers rate incorrect plural endings just as highly as correct ones, it would suggest experience with multiple language sound systems results in considering atypical pronunciations to be perfectly fine. In contrast, if multilingual speakers rate both types of incorrect plural endings as being equally bad, it would suggest that experience with multiple languages makes listeners more attuned to speech sounds, potentially as a way to quickly identify which language a talker is using. The results have implications for the ways in which language experience affects speech perception that go beyond narrowly defined populations of monolingual people.

Keywords

psycholinguistics, speech perception, multilingualism and bilingualism, phonological violations, cognitive science

Research Area

Linguistics and Language Studies

SIMILAR ABSTRACTS (BY KEYWORD)