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14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)San Francisco, CA, USA |
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14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)San Francisco, CA, USA |
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The range of VOT characterizing voiced [b] and voiceless [p]
stop consonants is different in English and Polish
languages. The study focused on the influence of voicing
distinction in Polish on that in English.
The experiment included 10 monolingual English
listeners and 10 bilingual Polish listeners who had learned
to speak English in an intensive setting between six and
twelve years of age. Participants listened to a [bi-pi]
continuum of 10 synthesized syllables with VOT values
varying from -40 to +50 ms. Ten repetitions of each
stimulus were presented to the listeners within Polish and
English settings.
Results indicated that the location of the phonemic
boundary between categories of voiced and voiceless stop
consonants differed significantly between bilingual and
monolingual groups. Moreover, a significant influence of
the language setting on categorization of stop consonants
by bilinguals suggests that they may possess a distinct
phonetic inventory representation for each language.
Bibliographic reference. Slawinski, Elzbieta B. / Wiigs, Megan (1999): "Categorization of bilabial stop consonants by bilingual speakers of English and Polish", In ICPhS-14, 771-774.