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The perception of language-specific phonetic categories does not guarantee accurate phonological representations in the lexicon of early bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2015

MARK AMENGUAL
MARK AMENGUAL*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Mark Amengual, Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 96064. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study examines the perception and processing of the Catalan /e/–/ɛ/ and /o/–/ɔ/ vowel contrasts by 60 Spanish–Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Results from binary forced-choice identification, AX discrimination, and lexical decision tasks show that even though these early and highly proficient bilinguals demonstrate a high accuracy in perceptual identification and discrimination tasks, they have difficulties distinguishing between words and nonwords in a lexical decision task. Spanish dominants also exhibited higher error rates than Catalan dominants in the lexical decision task. These findings provide evidence that making explicit judgments regarding whether a certain sound belongs to a phonemic category (i.e., as accomplished via identification and discrimination tasks) does not entail that listeners have an appropriate representation at the lexical level.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 1221 - 1251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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