The Listening Bilingual: Speech Perception, Comprehension, and Bilingualism

The Listening Bilingual brings together in one volume the various components of spoken language processing in bilingual adults, infants, and children.

The book includes a review of speech perception and word recognition; syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of speech processing; the perception and comprehension of bilingual mixed speech (code–switches, borrowings and interferences); and the assessment of bilingual speech perception and comprehension in adults and children in the clinical context.

The two main authors as well as selected guest authors, Mark Antoniou, Robert J. Hartsuiker, Lu–Feng Shi, Theres Grüter, and Elizabeth D. Peña and Lisa M. Bedore, introduce the various approaches used in the study of spoken language perception and comprehension in bilingual individuals. The authors focus on experimentation that involves both well–established tasks and newer tasks, as well as techniques used in brain imaging.

Written for advanced undergraduate students in linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and speech/language pathology as well as researchers, The Listening Bilingual offers a state–of–the–art review of the recent developments and approaches in speech and language processing in bilingual people of all ages.

Author Biographies viii

Introduction 1

1 Bilingual Adults and Children: A Short Introduction 4
François Grosjean and Krista Byers –Heinlein

­Introduction 4

­General Aspects of Bilingualism 5

­Bilingual Children 13

­Summary 21

­References 21

2 Speech Perception and Comprehension 25
François Grosjean and Krista Byers ]Heinlein

­Introduction 25

­From the Speech Wave to the Mental Representation 26

­Processing in Bilingual Adults 29

­Processing in Bilingual Children 33

­Summary 37

­References 37

Part I Speech Processing in Adults 41

3 Speech Perception 43
Mark Antoniou

­Introduction 43

­Perception of Speech Segments by Bilinguals 43

­Factors Affecting Bilinguals Speech Perception 48

­Theories of Cross ]Language Speech Perception 54

­The Role of Suprasegmentals in Speech Perception 58

­Future Challenges and Directions 60

­Summary 61

­References 61

4 Spoken Word Recognition 65
François Grosjean

­Introduction 65

­How Does Word Recognition Take Place and How Do Bilinguals Fare? 66

­Language Proficiency, Use and History 67

­Lower Level Information 71

­Processing Mechanisms and Strategies 73

­The Activation of Candidates 77

­Summary 82

­References 83

5 Processing at Higher Levels 86
Robert J. Hartsuiker

­Introduction 86

­Auditory Sentence Comprehension: Stages and Principles 86

­Syntactic Analysis 90

­Processing the Meaning of Words 97

­Syntactic Integration and Revision 102

­Discussion and Conclusion 103

­Summary 104

­References 105

6 Processing Bilingual Speech 109
François Grosjean

­Introduction 109

­Does the Perception of Spoken Code ]Switches Take Extra Time? 110

­The Recognition of Guest Words 115

­The Processing of Interferences 123

­Summary 126

­References 126

7 Assessing Perception and Comprehension in Bilingual Adults 129
Lu ]Feng Shi

­Introduction 129

­Issues in Bilingual Assessment 129

­Word Recognition 131

­Word Frequency and Familiarity 134

­Recognition of Connected Speech 137

­Factors That Affect Assessment of Speech Perception in Bilinguals 140

­Summary 144

­References 145

Part II Speech Processing in Children 151

8 Speech Perception 153
Krista Byers ]Heinlein

­Introduction 153

 Simultaneous Bilingual Infants 154

­Child L2 Learners 166

­Summary 171

­References 172

9 Spoken Word Recognition 176
Krista Byers ]Heinlein

­Introduction 176

­Finding Words in the Speech Stream 176

­Learning New Words 179

­Recognizing Familiar Words 184

­The Role of Speech Perception in Learning and Recognizing Words 187

­Bilingual Children s Vocabulary 190

­Summary 194

­References 194

10 Processing at Higher Levels 199
Theres Grüter

­Introduction 199

­Asymmetries Between Comprehension and Production 201

­Real ]Time Processing 205

­Cross ]Linguistic Influence 207

­Input and Exposure 214

­Summary 216

­References 217

11  Assessing Perception and Comprehension in Bilingual Children, Without and With Speech and Language Impairment 220
Elizabeth D. Peña and Lisa M. Bedore

­Introduction 220

­Defining Language Impairment 220

­Phonological Perception and Word Learning 221

­Challenges in Assessment of Bilingual Children 223

­Assessment of Single Word Knowledge 227

­Parent Report Measures 228

­Assessment of Semantic Knowledge 233

­Implications for Practice 236

­Summary 236

­References 237

Index

François Grosjean is Professor Emeritus of Psycholinguistics at Neuchâtel University, Switzerland. His publications on bilingualism include many articles and chapters as well as Bilingual: Life and Reality (2010), The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism (Wiley Blackwell, 2013; with Ping Li), and Parler plusieurs langues: Le monde des bilingues (2015). He is also a Founding Editor of the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition and was its first Coordinating Editor.

Krista Byers–Heinlein is Associate Professor of Psychology at Concordia University, Canada, where she holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Bilingualism. She is a world–recognized expert in the language, cognitive, and social development of bilingual infants and children, and she has published extensively in academic journals.