Perception of Canadian French word-final vowels by English-dominant and French-dominant bilinguals

Abstract

Self-identified English-dominant and French-dominant bilinguals from Montreal participated in a modified vowel identification task. Group differences in accuracy and speed for identifying experimental vowels /e, ε, o, u, y, ⊘/ were investigated relative to control vowels /i, a/, expected to be easiest and fastest to identify by both groups. Of interest was the performance on front-rounded /y-⊘/ (non-phonemic in English) and /e-ε/ (phonologically contrastive in both languages, but // is disallowed word-finally in English). Both groups performed well overall in identifying experimental vowels although the French-dominant group was comparatively more accurate and faster. The English-dominant group was slower than the French-dominant group in identifying /y/ and /e/. Mouse cursor movements captured trial-by-trial revealed that both groups often moved the cursor toward the response button for /u/ before correctly identifying /y/. Results showed that English-dominant participants demonstrated less-automatic perception of most experimental vowels. However, performance speed and mouse patterns of the French-dominant group varied among native vowel categories, implying possible interactions between automaticity and auditory salience. Productions of /e-ε/ by participants were analyzed to explore the relative robustness in production of this contrast among participants. Correlations between task performance and measures of French proficiency are explored. [Work supported by NIH F31DC008075.]