The Effect of Dual Language Activation on L2-Induced Changes in L1 Speech within a Code-Switched Paradigm

• Main Authors: Ulrich Reubold, Sanne Ditewig, Robert Mayr, Ineke Mennen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: Languages
• Subjects: L1 attrition; speech; code-switching; English; Austrian German; phonetic drift
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/6/3/114

The present study sought to examine the effect of dual language activation on L1 speech in late English–Austrian German sequential bilinguals, and to identify relevant predictor variables. To this end, we compared the English speech patterns of adult migrants to Austria in a code-switched and monolingual condition alongside those of monolingual native speakers in England in a monolingual condition. In the code-switched materials, German words containing target segments known to trigger cross-linguistic interaction in the two languages (i.e., [v–w], [ʃt(ʁ)-st(ɹ)] and [l-ɫ]) were inserted into an English frame; monolingual materials comprised English words with the same segments. To examine whether the position of the German item affects L1 speech, the segments occurred either <i>before</i> the switch (“He <b>w</b>ants a <b><i>W</i></b><i>ienerschnitzel</i>”) or <i>after</i> (“I like <b><i>W</i></b><i>ürstel</i> <b>w</b>ith mustard”). Critical acoustic measures of these segments revealed no differences between the groups in the monolingual condition, but significant L2-induced shifts in the bilinguals’ L1 speech production in the code-switched condition for some sounds. These were found to occur both before and after a code-switch, and exhibited a fair amount of individual variation. Only the amount of L2 use was found to be a significant predictor variable for shift size in code-switched compared with monolingual utterances, and only for [w]. These results have important implications for the role of dual activation in the speech of late sequential bilinguals.