Minimal-pair word learning by bilingual toddlers: the Catalan /e/-/ɛ/ contrast revisited

• MARTA RAMON-CASAS ^[1] ; CHRISTOPHER T. FENNELL ^[2] ; LAURA BOSCH ^[1]
  1. [1] Universitat de Barcelona

     Universitat de Barcelona

     Barcelona, España

     
  2. [2] University of Ottawa

     University of Ottawa

     Canadá

     
• Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 20, Nº 3, 2017, págs. 649-656
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Twelve-month-old bilingual and monolingual infants show comparable phonetic discrimination skills for vowels belonging to their native language/s. However, Catalan–Spanish bilingual toddlers, but not Catalan monolinguals, appear insensitive to a vowel mispronunciation in familiar words involving the Catalan–Specific /e/-/ɛ/ contrast. Here bilingual and monolingual toddlers were tested in a challenging minimal-pair word learning task involving that contrast (i.e., [bepi]-[bɛpi]). Both groups succeeded, suggesting that bilinguals can successfully use their phonetic categories to phonologically encode novel words. It is argued that bilinguals’ impoverished vowel representations in familiar words might be the result of experiential input factors (e.g., cognate words and mispronunciations due to accented speech).