Phonetic behavior in proficient bilinguals

Abstract

This chapter discusses a selection of the literature on the phonetic behavior of proficient bilinguals. It examines both perception and production, and it focuses on what is known about a particular bilingual group: Catalan–Spanish bilinguals. This population has received a lot of attention because it allows for the exploration of bilingual individuals with different experience profiles who reside in a speech community where both languages enjoy similar social status and are thus likely to be used by any member of the community in any given day. Phonetic research on this bilingual population has been concerned mostly with addressing the following question: What is the role of the age of first exposure to an additional language in the manner in which a bilingual will represent and process this language? Research on this population has sparked a wealth of investigations on other populations in order to address this question from multiple perspectives.