Voice Onset Time In Spanish English Bilinguals

Language transfer is a linguistic process that occurs when a person's first language influences the production of their second language. Language transfer can have phonological, syntactic, and lexical properties. Phonological language transfer is often recognized as the presence of a foreign accent. Voice onset time is often used as an indicator of phonological language interference, and it can be used to understand the factors that influence accented versus accentless speech in one's second language. This article is an examination of the literature about voice-onset time in bilinguals, primarily focusing on Spanish-English bilinguals. Several different frameworks of language interference have been proposed to explain second language acquisition, including the Critical Period Hypothesis and the Speech Learning Model. These frameworks can be applied to research on second language acquisition to understand the effects of one's first language (Ll) on their second language (L2). Consideration of the available literature indicates that VOT values for bilinguals depend largely on age of acquisition, code-switching, and the development of phonetic categories for different sounds. Research indicates that phonological language interference is unidirectional in the direction of the L2, and even L2 dominant bilinguals will show evidence of Ll interference when examining VOT. Further research is needed to examine the possibility of unidirectional L2 to LI interference.