Interlingual influence in bilingual speech: Cognate status effect in a continuum of bilingualism

TLDR

The study examines whether cognates amplify cross‑language phonetic influence on voice onset times among Spanish–English bilinguals. Researchers compared cognates, which share phonological, semantic, and orthographic features, to non‑cognates lacking phonological overlap. Cognate status significantly lengthened Spanish /t/ VOTs, making them more English‑like, and suggests the exemplar model should incorporate bilingual lexical connections to explain phonetic interference.

Abstract

The present study investigates voice onset times (VOTs) to determine if cognates enhance the cross-language phonetic influences in the speech production of a range of Spanish–English bilinguals: Spanish heritage speakers, English heritage speakers, advanced L2 Spanish learners, and advanced L2 English learners. To answer this question, lexical items with considerable phonological, semantic, and orthographic overlap (cognates) and lexical items with no phonological overlap with their English translation equivalents (non-cognates) were examined. The results indicate that there is a significant effect of cognate status in the Spanish production of VOT by Spanish–English bilinguals. These bilinguals produced /t/ with longer VOT values (more English-like) in the Spanish production of cognates compared to non-cognate words. It is proposed that the exemplar model of lexical representation (Bybee, 2001; Pierrehumbert, 2001) can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections by which cognates facilitate phonetic interference in the bilingual mental lexicon.