Objective Bilinguals manage sound (phonetic) systems of two languages. This practice might cause some differences in the nature of phonetic processing of bilinguals compared to monolinguals, a difference to be examined in the proposed research. Some recent neuroimaging studies suggest that special neural circuitry is used by bilinguals in non-native speech perception and that this circuitry provides them with more phonetic sensitivity than monolinguals (Arcilla-Suerte et al., 2013; Petitto et al., 2012). However, only the phonetic sensitivity of bilingual babies has been tested so far. The goal of the proposed research is to address this preliminary hypothesis of the bilingual advantage in phonetic processing by looking at the performance of bilingual adults in phonetic processing tasks. In particular, we plan to assess (1) bilinguals’ sensitivity to co-articulatory cues and (2) the effect of auditory cues (foreign accent) on code-switching costs. If the bilingual advantage hypothesis in phonetic processing is indeed correct, then, we should observe an increase in sensitivity of bilinguals to co-articulatory cue violations and to the presence of accented speech compared to monolinguals. These differences are likely to be observed in behavioural, electroencephalographic (EEG) and neuroimaging (fMRI) responses of two groups. The performance of bilinguals in their native (L1) and non-native languages (L2) will be assessed. In addition, the effects of such factors as L2 age of acquisition, L1 and L2 proficiency, and similarity of phonetic systems of L1 and L2 on the magnitude of phonetic sensitivity will be examined. The outcome of the proposed research has inter-disciplinary impact as it will be of scientific value to psychologists, linguists investigating language processing in bilinguals, educators, and speech/language pathologists working with bilingual populations. Fields of science social scienceseducational sciencesdidactics Keywords bilingual phonetic processing phonetic sensitivity bilingual advantage hypothesis co-articulation code-switching EEG eye-tracking fMRI Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2014-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2014 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator BCBL BASQUE CENTER ON COGNITION BRAIN AND LANGUAGE Net EU contribution € 170 121,60 Address Paseo mikeletegi 69 2 20009 San sebastian Spain See on map Region Noreste País Vasco Gipuzkoa Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
