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19 - Phonological Processing and Lexical Encoding in Bilingual Speech

from Part IV - The Phonetics and Phonology of the Bilingual Adult

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Isabelle Darcy  and
John R. Rothgerber
Edited by
Mark Amengual
Mark Amengual
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Summary

Spoken word recognition is an automatic and smooth everyday process for most of us in our first language (L1), but it can be challenging in a second language (L2). Bilinguals’ recognition of spoken L2 words is characterized by L1 interference in how words are phonologically encoded in the mental lexicon, and how they are activated during comprehension. This chapter provides an overview of phonological processing during spoken word recognition in bilinguals, describing how phonological knowledge in L1 impacts the processing of native and non-native speech for various phonological dimensions. The chapter then surveys major experimental findings in L2 phonological perception and lexical access processes, highlighting the connection between the two, and showing that the phonolexical representations created by L2 learners are L1 influenced. This survey is contextualized by an outline of the various “forces” that further shape processing (e.g. orthography, vocabulary size, or lexical factors). Finally, the chapter outlines how L2 phonological processing develops over time, and how learners succeed at optimizing their processing and creating more target-like phonolexical representations.

Keywords

spoken word recognitionphonological processingsecond language speech perceptionlexical accessbilingual mental lexiconphonolexical encodingsublexical phonological representationphonolexical representations
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology , pp. 426 - 447
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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