The voiceless consonantal stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ in code-switched and non-code-switched contexts. A study on Romanian and English

Abstract

The present study analyzes the variation that occurs in the realizations of the voiceless consonantal stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ by Romanian-English bilingual speakers, in both monolingual/non-switched and bilingual/code-switched language contexts. The central issue of our research is whether or not there exists cross-linguistic phonetic transfer of the suprasegmental feature [+aspiration], measurable through VOT values, when bilingual speakers of Romanian (as their L1) and English (as their L2) produce code-switched sentences, irrespective of the direction of the switch. The analysis of the VOT values of the speech productions, extracted using Praat (v. 6.3.09), shows that code-switching affects the productions of /p/, /t/, and /k/, with the [+aspiration] feature being transferred from English (L2) to Romanian (L1) in code-switched sentences, and that, in monolingual language contexts, we may also see a transfer of this feature occurring from one language to another.