Code-switching experience as a mitigating factor for cross-linguistic phonetic interference

Abstract

The present study investigates the extent to which code-switching experience modulates short-term cross-linguistic phonetic interference. Three experiments were conducted, each examining a different acoustic parameter in the context of code-switching, a dual language paradigm previously shown to enhance cross-linguistic phonetic interference. Bilinguals’ prior experience with code-switching was assessed using the Bilingual Code-Switching Profile. In Experiment 1, Korean–English bilinguals’ productions of F1 and F2 for the code-switched English vowel /æ/ were compared to monolingual (i.e., non-switched) Korean /e/ and English /æ/. While code-switched English vowels shifted in the direction of monolingual Korean vowels, the results suggest that bilinguals with more code-switching experience exhibited reduced cross-linguistic interference relative to those with less experience. In Experiments 2 and 3, Spanish–English bilinguals’ productions of fricative voicing (Experiment 2) and spirantization of intervocalic voiced stops (Experiment 3) in Spanish and English code-switched tokens were compared to monolingual tokens. Results suggest that participants with greater code-switching experience produced less evidence of cross-linguistic phonetic interference for both fricative voicing and intervocalic spirantization. Collectively, and suggesting a role for executive control mechanisms at the phonetic level, these findings illustrate that code-switching experience serves to mitigate short-term cross-linguistic interference.