The hybrid system of voice onset time in French/English bilinguals

This study will look at the production of occlusive consonants by bilinguals in both their first and second languages, namely French and English. Due to the inherent differences in the voice onset times (VOTs) of these two languages, do second language speakers acquire a native‐like voice onset time when speaking in their second language or do traces of their first language remain? It will be shown that although French and English have categorical distinctions in their VOT systems [Keating ‘‘Phonetic and phonological representation of stop consonant voicing,’’ Language, 60, 286–319 (1984) Lisker & Abramson, ‘‘A cross‐language study of voicing in initial stops: Acoustic measurements,’’ Word. 20, 384–422 (1964)] a hybrid system of the two languages is produced regardless of first language. This research is part of a larger continuing study looking at speaker identification of bilinguals. Due to the right to a trial in either of the official languages of Canada, French or English, it is impossible to force a...