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\iteman{io-port 01963280}
\itemau{Flege, James E.; Schirru, Carlo; MacKay, Ian R. A.}
\itemti{Interaction between the native and second language phonetic subsystems.}
\itemso{Speech Commun. 40, No. 4, 467-491 (2003).}
\itemab
Summary: The underlying premise of this study was that the two phonetic subsystems of a bilingual interact. The study tested the hypothesis that the vowels a bilingual produces in a second language (L2) may differ from vowels produced by monolingual native speakers of the L2 as the result of either of two mechanisms: phonetic category assimilation or phonetic category dissimilation. Earlier work revealed that native speakers of Italian identify English /e$^I$/ tokens as instances of the Italian /e/ category even though English /e$^I$/ is produced with more tongue movement than Italian /e/ is. Acoustic analyses in the present study examined /e$^I$/s produced by four groups of Italian--English bilinguals who differed according to their age of arrival in Canada from Italy (early versus late) and frequency of continued Italian use (low-L1-use versus high-L1-use). Early bilinguals who seldom used Italian (Early-low) were found to produce English /e$^I$/ with significantly more movement than native English speakers. However, both groups of late bilinguals (Late-low, Late-high) tended to produced /e$^I$/ with less movement than NE speakers. The exaggerated movement in /e$^I$/s produced by the Early-low group participants was attributed to the dissimilation of a phonetic category they formed for English /e$^I$/ from Italian /e/. The undershoot of movement in /e$^I$/s produced by late bilinguals, on the other hand, was attributed to their failure to establish a new category for English /e$^I$/, which led to the merger of the phonetic properties of English /e$^I$/ and Italian /e/.
\itemrv{~}
\itemcc{I.5.4 I.2.7 J.5}
\itemut{Bilingualism; Second language acquisition; Vowel production; Language interaction; Tongue movement; English; Italian}
\itemli{doi:10.1016/S0167-6393(02)00128-0}
\end