Contribution of prior linguistic knowledge to L3 phonological perception and production

Abstract

Adult phonological processing may be affected by previous linguistic knowledge. Here, we examine how phonological perception and production in a third-language (L3) are affected by multilinguals’ first- (L1) and second-languages (L2). To this end, Arabic-Hebrew-English trilinguals (n = 41) completed an oddity (perception) task and a word repetition (production) task in English (the L3). Critically, word pairs (n = 96) targeted phonological contrasts that overlap between English and Arabic (L1), English and Hebrew (L2), English and both Arabic and Hebrew (Both) or exist uniquely in English (None). Results showed that words including phonological contrasts that exist in L1 Arabic (L1 & Both conditions) were perceived more accurately than those that do not exist in the L1 (L2 & None conditions). This pattern cannot be the mere result of item characteristics, because using the same items, a control group of Hebrew-English bilinguals (n = 39) responded more accurately when phonological contrasts overlapped with Hebrew (their L1). We further verified that the L2 contrasts had at least partially been acquired in the L2, by testing an additional group of trilinguals (n = 27), who performed above chance on these contrasts when embedded in an L2 task. Judgments collected from monolingual English evaluators revealed that trilingual productions exhibited the same pattern as that observed in perception, with more intelligible productions of contrasts which overlap with the L1, but not with the L2. Thus, multilinguals appear to draw on their L1 knowledge, but not on their L2 knowledge, while processing phonological information in the L3. The findings further underscore the relation between phonological perception and production in the L3.