SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUALS AND FLEGE’S SPEECH LEARNING MODEL

Ian Watson
University of Oxford

ID 1239
[full paper]

The applicability of Flege’s Speech Learning Model (SLM) to simultaneous bilinguals is examined in two related experiments on the acquisition of the production and perception of the voicing contrast in simultaneous French-English bilinguals. The results show that the SLM can account for the data providing account is taken of the degree of bilinguals’ exposure to each language.