Impact of early bilingualism on perception and production of new sounds of a third language in young children

Aims and objectives: In this study, we examine the discrimination and the pronunciation of new Spanish and Mandarin phonemes in French–English bilingual children in first and second grades compared with French-speaking monolingual children of the same grades. Design/methodology/approach: We recruited 18 French–English bilingual children and 27 French-speaking monolingual children in first or second grade in elementary schools. They were asked to carry out discrimination and word repetition tasks from audio files recorded by a Colombian Spanish speaker and a Chinese Mandarin speaker. Data and analysis: For discrimination tasks, we calculated two measures: the percentage of success in the discrimination of two Spanish rhotics (/r/-/ɾ/) and the percentage of success in the discrimination of the set of Mandarin phonological contrasts (/p-p h /, /t-t h /, /k-k h /, /ʂ-ɕ/, /ts-ts h /, /tʂ-tʂ h / and /tɕ-tɕ h /). For word repetition tasks, pronunciation was assessed for accuracy and foreign accent by native Spanish and Mandarin speakers. We completed our analyses with measures of voice onset time (VOT) values of Mandarin stops in word initial position (in milliseconds). Findings and conclusions: The results of our study showed that the members of the bilingual group were neither advantaged nor disadvantaged compared with the monolingual group. Our findings suggest that specific exposure to the characteristics intrinsic to an L3 is necessary for mastering new sounds in an L3. Originality: This study examines whether early bilingualism facilitates the perception and the pronunciation of new sounds in an L3 in young bilingual (French–English) children. Few studies have examined this issue in this age group, that is, 6- to 9-year-old children. In addition, unlike other studies that analyzed oral production in speech, we chose to focus on the pronunciation of sounds in isolated words. Significance: Our study highlights that no significant differences between bilingual and monolingual children were revealed. These results contribute to an understanding of whether there are bilingual advantages in L3 phonological acquisition.