Community language exposure affects voice onset time patterns in Spanish-English bilingual children and functional English monolingual children

Abstract

This study examined English VOT productions by 37 Spanish-English bilingual children and 37 matched functional monolinguals, all aged 3–6 years, from the same Latinx community. It also assessed the bilinguals’ Spanish stop productions and investigated the effects of age and language exposure on their VOT productions. The results revealed credible between-group differences on English voiced, but not voiceless, stops, with shorter VOTs for bilinguals. However, both groups exhibited similar pre-voicing levels, which may suggest an effect of the community language, Spanish, not only on the bilinguals’ English VOT patterns but also the monolinguals’. The study also found cross-linguistic differentiation of voiceless stops, but not voiced ones, in the bilinguals’ productions and revealed effects of age and exposure not only on VOT in Spanish but also in the majority language, English. These findings have important implications for the conceptualization of monolingual-bilingual comparisons in settings where the community and majority language coexist.