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13 - The Speech Production of Bilingual Children

from Part III - The Phonetics and Phonology of the Bilingual Child

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Margaret Kehoe
Edited by
Mark Amengual
Mark Amengual
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Summary

This chapter reviews research on the phonetic and phonological production patterns of children exposed to two or more languages in early childhood. Much of the research has examined whether bilingual children differ from monolingual children in their production patterns and, when differences have been found, whether such patterns can be explained by language-internal (e.g., the influence of the phonological properties of one language on the other), language-external (e.g., language input or dominance), or other factors (e.g., the developing lexicon). We focus on language-internal influences, also referred to as cross-linguistic interaction, and review models that have been used to account for interaction. Our findings reveal that, while systematic differences between monolingual and bilingual speech exist, the differences are not large and may be explained by multiple factors. The chapter concludes with a discussion of research limitations which include small participant numbers and a predominance of certain language pairs, factors that have hindered attempts to model cross-linguistic interaction.

Keywords

speech productionphonological developmentphonetic developmentcross-linguistic interactioncross-linguistic influencesimultaneous bilingualssequential bilingualsearly bilingualismtransfer
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology , pp. 285 - 307
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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