Accent effects in auditory processing by native and non-native speakers.

Abstract

The current study examined whether non-native listeners’ perception is facilitated by a match between their L1 and the accent with which L2 words are pronounced. An auditory lexical decision task was used, where English words and nonwords were pronounced by a native speaker of English or a native speaker of Mexican Spanish. Half the words were cognates (overlapping in phonetic form and meaning across languages) while half were noncognates. Spanish-English bilinguals from Mexico and English-speaking monolinguals listened to accented and nonaccented stimuli and decided as quickly as possible whether they were English words. Results indicate an effect of lexical status and accent in both listener groups, with faster reaction times (RTs) for words than nonwords, and slower RTs on accented than nonaccented stimuli. However, English-speaking monolinguals were slower than Spanish-English bilinguals in recognizing accented English words. Moreover, Spanish-English bilinguals demonstrated faster RTs for cognates than for noncognates, but only when these were spoken with a Spanish accent. Results indicate that non-native accent influences auditory processing even in listeners who are familiar with the particular accent. Further, cognate effects indicate that lexical-phonological variables interact with acoustical factors in determining the efficiency with which the bilingual lexical system processes auditory information.