Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-13T12:32:54.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The impact of a subordinate L1 on L2 auditory processing in adult bilinguals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2010

MINH NGUYEN-HOAN*
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
MARCUS TAFT
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Minh Nguyen-Hoan, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australiamnguyen@psy.unsw.edu.au

Abstract

For bilinguals born in an English-speaking country or who arrive at a young age, English (L2) often becomes their dominant language by adulthood. This study examines whether such adult bilinguals show equivalent performance to monolingual English native speakers on three English auditory processing tasks: phonemic awareness, spelling-to-dictation and auditory comprehension. The study contrasts three bilingual language groups differing in their L1: morphosyllabic/logographic L1 (Cantonese), morphosyllabic/alphabetic (Vietnamese) L1 and non-morphosyllabic/alphabetic L1 (Other). Particularly on the tasks that involved nonwords, the morphosyllabic bilingual groups performed most poorly, suggesting an effect of L1 phonological structure on English processing despite L1 having become subordinate to L2. The results indicate that even when a bilingual is born, raised and educated in their L2 environment, native equivalence in L2 is not assured.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The research reported in this paper was partly supported by a grant to the second author from the Australian Research Council.

References

Akamatsu, N. (1999). The effects of first language orthographic features on word recognition processing in English as a second language. Reading and Writing, 11, 381403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., & van Rijn, H. (1993). The CELEX lexical database [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Bahrick, H. P., Hall, L. K., Goggin, J. P., Bahrick, L. E. & Berger, S. A. (1994). Fifty years of language maintenance and language dominance in bilingual Hispanic immigrants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 264283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. (1989). Functionalism and the competition model. In MacWhinney, B. & Bates, E. (eds.), The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing, pp. 373. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Majumder, S. & Martin, M. M. (2003). Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 2744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Miller, B. (1999). The problem of age on second-language acquisition: Influences from language, structure, and task. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2, 127145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birdsong, D. & Molis, M. (2001). On the evidence for maturational constraints on second language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 235249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bors, D. A. & Stokes, T. L. (1998). Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices: Norms for first-year university students and the development of a short form. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 58, 382398.Google Scholar
Bosch, L., Costa, A. & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2000). First and second language vowel perception in early bilinguals. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 12, 189221.Google Scholar
Caravolas, M. & Bruck, M. (1993). The effect of oral and written language input on children's phonological awareness: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 55, 130.Google Scholar
Cheung, H. & Chen, H.-C. (2004). Early orthographic experience modifies both phonological awareness and online speech processing. Language and Cognitive Processes, 19, 128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheung, H., Chen, H.-C., Lai, C. Y., Wong, O. C. & Hills, M. (2001). The development of phonological awareness: Effects of spoken language experience and orthography. Cognition, 81, 227241.Google Scholar
Cossu, G., Shankweiler, D., Liberman, I. Y., Katz, L. E. & Tola, G. (1988). Awareness of phonological segments and reading ability in Italian children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D. & Segui, J. (1992). The monolingual nature of speech segmentation by bilinguals. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 381410.Google Scholar
DeFrancis, J. (1989). Visible speech: The diverse oneness of writing systems. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durgunoglu, A. D. & Oney, B. (1999). A cross-linguistic comparison of phonological awareness and word recognition. Reading and Writing, 11, 281299.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Bohn, O. & Jang, S. (1997a). Effects of experience on non-native speakers’ production and perception of English vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 437470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E., Frieda, E. M. & Nozawa, T. (1997b). Amount of native-language (L1) use affects the pronunciation of an L2. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 169186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E., MacKay, I. R. A. & Piske, T. (2002). Assessing bilingual dominance. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 567598.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Munro, M. J. & MacKay, I. R. (1995). Factors affecting strength of perceived foreign accent in a second language. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 31253134.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Yeni–Komshian, G. H. & Liu, S. (1999). Age constraints on second-language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 78104.Google Scholar
Golato, P. (2002). Word parsing by late-learning French–English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 417446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gollan, T. H. & Acenas, L. R. (2004). What is a TOT? Cognate and translation effects on tip-of-the-tongue states in Spanish–English and Tagalog–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30, 246269.Google Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Fennema-Notestine, C. & Morris, S. K. (2005). Bilingualism affects picture naming but not picture classification. Memory & Cognition, 33, 12201234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U. & Bryant, P. (1990). Phonological skills and learning to read. East Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hamilton, E. & Gillon, G. (2006). The phonological awareness skills of school-aged children who are bilingual in Samoan and English. Advances in Speech-Language Pathology, 8, 5768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernandez, A. E. & Li, P. (2007). Age of acquisition: Its neural and computational mechanisms. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 638650.Google Scholar
Hernandez, A., Li, P. & MacWhinney, B. (2005). The emergence of competing modules in bilingualism. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 220225.Google Scholar
Ho, C. S.-H. & Bryant, P. (1997). Development of phonological awareness of Chinese children in Hong Kong. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 109126.Google Scholar
Holm, A. & Dodd, B. (1996). The effect of first written language on the acquisition of English literacy. Cognition, 59, 119147.Google Scholar
Huang, H. & Hanley, J. (1994). Phonological awareness and visual skills in learning to read Chinese and English. Cognition, 54, 7398.Google Scholar
Just, M. A. & Carpenter, P. A. (1992). Paradigms and processing in reading comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 111, 228238.Google Scholar
Kohnert, K. J., Bates, E. & Hernandez, A. E. (1999). Balancing bilinguals: Lexical–semantic production and cognitive processing in children learning Spanish and English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 14001413.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liberman, I. Y., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W. & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18, 201212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Y. (2003). Interphonology variability: Sociolinguistic factors affecting L2 simplification strategies. Applied Linguistics, 24, 439464.Google Scholar
Long, M. (1990). Maturational constraints on language development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12, 251285.Google Scholar
MacDonald, M. C. & Christiansen, M. H. (2002). Reassessing working memory: Comment on Just and Carpenter (1992) and Waters and Caplan (1996). Psychological Review, 109, 3554.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (1987). The Competition Model. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition, pp. 249308. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1992). Transfer and competition in second language learning. In Harris, R. (ed.), Cognitive processing in bilinguals, pp. 371390. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1997). Second language acquisition and the competition model. In de Groot, A. M. B. & Kroll, J. F. (eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives, pp. 113144. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2005). A unified model of language acquisition. In Kroll, J. F. & de Groot, A. M. B. (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches, pp. 4967. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McDonald, J. L. (2000). Grammaticality judgments in a second language: Influences of age of acquisition and native language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 395423.Google Scholar
Morais, J., Cary, L., Alegria, J. & Bertelson, P. (1979). Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously? Cognition, 7, 323331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pallier, C., Bosch, L. & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (1997). A limit on behavioral plasticity in speech perception. Cognition, 64, B9B17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pallier, C., Colome, A. & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2001). The influence of native-language phonology on lexical access: Exemplar-based versus abstract lexical entries. Psychological Science, 12, 445449.Google Scholar
Pallier, C., Dehaene, S., Poline, J.-B., LeBihan, D., Argenti, A.-M., Dupoux, E. & Mehler, J. (2003). Brain imaging of language plasticity in adopted adults: Can a second language replace the first? Cerebral Cortex, 13, 155161.Google Scholar
Perry, C., Ziegler, J. C. & Coltheart, M. (2002). A dissociation between orthographic awareness and spelling production. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 4373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piske, T., MacKay, I. & Flege, J. E. (2001). Factors affecting degree of foreign accent in an L2: A review. Journal of Phonetics, 29, 191215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, C., Zhang, Y., Nie, H. & Ding, B. (1986). The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic writing. Cognition, 24, 3144.Google Scholar
Sebastián-Gallés, N., Echeverría, S. & Bosch, L. (2005). The influence of initial exposure on lexical representation: Comparing early and simultaneous bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 52, 240255.Google Scholar
Singleton, D. (2005). The Critical Period Hypothesis: A coat of many colours. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 43, 269285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., Cunningham, A. E. & Cramer, B. B. (1984). Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children: Issues of task comparability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 38, 175190.Google Scholar
Taft, R. & Bodi, H. (1980). A study of language competence and first language maintenance in bilingual children. International Review of Applied Psychology, 29, 173182.Google Scholar
Taft, M., Castles, A., Davis, C., Lazendic, G. & Nguyen-Hoan, M. (2008). Automatic activation of orthography in spoken word recognition: Pseudohomograph priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 366379.Google Scholar
Tyler, M. (2001). Resource consumption as a function of topic knowledge in nonnative and native comprehension. Language Learning, 51, 257280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ventureyra, V. A. G., Pallier, C. & Yoo, H.-Y. (2004). The loss of first language phonetic perception in adopted Koreans. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 17, 7991.Google Scholar
Vitevitch, M. S. & Luce, P. A. (1999). Probabilistic phonotactics and neighborhood activation in spoken word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 40, 374408.Google Scholar
Wang, M., Koda, K. & Perfetti, C. A. (2003). Alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 effects in English word identification: A comparison of Korean and Chinese English L2 learners. Cognition, 87, 129149.Google Scholar
Waters, G. S. & Caplan, D. (1996). The capacity theory of sentence comprehension: Critique of Just and Carpenter (1992). Psychological Review, 103, 761772.Google Scholar
Weber-Fox, C. M. & Neville, H. J. (1996). Maturational constraints on functional specializations for language processing: ERP and behavioral evidence in bilingual speakers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 231256.Google Scholar
Weber-Fox, C. & Neville, H. (2001). Sensitive periods differentiate processing of open and closed class words: An ERP study of bilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 44, 13381353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolff, D. (1987). Some assumptions about second language comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 9, 307326.Google Scholar
Yamada, J. (2004). An L1-script-transfer-effect fallacy: A rejoinder to Wang et al. (2003). Cognition, 93, 127132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeni-Komshian, G. H., Flege, J. E. & Liu, S. (2000). Pronunciation proficiency in the first and second languages of Korean–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 131149.Google Scholar
Yopp, H. (1988). The validity and reliability of phonemic awareness tasks. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 159176.Google Scholar