Bilingual speech perception and learning: A review of recent trends. (February 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ingvalson, Erin M.; Ettlinger, Marc; Wong, Patrick C. M.
• Other Names: Reiterer Susanne Maria guest-editor.; Festman Julia guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: International journal of bilingualism. Volume 18:Number 1(2014)
• Page Start: 35
• Page End: 47
• Publication Date: 2014-02
• Subjects: Bilingualism -- speech perception -- individual differences -- training -- learning -- /r–l/ -- /ε–e/; Bilingualism -- Periodicals; Bilingualism -- Research -- Periodicals; Language acquisition -- Periodicals; 306.446072
• DOI: 10.1177/1367006912456586
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1367-0069

Abstract

Over the past several years, the field of bilingual speech perception has seen a substantial increase in both the number of publications and in the amount of interest directed at its findings. Consequently, the time is ripe to assess the state of the field, what we have accomplished and where we have yet to go. Although we cannot capture the full state of the field in the space of this paper, we hope to summarize the major trends that have led to the current state and take stock of its future directions. To that end, we focus our review on the relative merits of single phonemes versus whole words and phrases when investigating bilingual speech, the efficacy of the different training paradigms that have been attempted and we focus, in particular, on the role of individual differences in predicting learning outcomes. We conclude our review by highlighting recent developments demonstrating that identifying individual differences in ability pre-training can result in more efficacious training paradigms. Goals for future research are also discussed.