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Cross-Language Phonological Influence in Spanish-English Code-Switching
While it is known that bilinguals have cross-language interactions between phonological processes and that code-switching can strengthen within-speaker cross-language phonetic convergence, few studies have examined whether code-switching can strengthen cross-language phonological interactions. This study explores the effects of code-switching on the crosslanguage transfer of phonological processes between a bilingual’s two phonological systems. I investigate two main questions: 1) Can a bilingual speaker cross-linguistically transfer phonological processes (promotion) or the lack of particular processes (inhibition) in a codeswitching context?; and 2) Do code switches affect the degree and/or frequency of these crosslanguage influences? I examine the English tapping process (/t/ → [ɾ]) and the Spanish spirantization process (/d/ → [ð]) in both languages in spontaneous code-switched speech. Data was collected from the Miami Corpus (Bangor University’s Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice).
Results indicate that code-switching can indeed affect bilinguals’ cross-language transfers of phonological processes. This occurs through process promotion, wherein a process of one language is transferred into the other language, and process inhibition, wherein the lack of a particular process in one language is transferred into the other. These cross-language transfers exert influence as partial promotions or inhibitions, realized as phonetically gradient effects (e.g., Spanish /t/ realized as a more tap-like /t/), and occasionally as more complete promotions, realized as a categorically distinct allophone (e.g., Spanish /t/ realized as [ɾ]). These results indicate that code-switching can strengthen the interactions between a bilingual’s two phonological systems.</p