Chapter 2. Cross-language influences in the perception and production of L2 phonetics and phonology in young bilinguals

This chapter provides an overview of findings on cross-language influence in the phonetic and phonological domain in children exposed to two (or more) languages in early childhood. The chapter first summarizes theoretical models which have been used to account for cross-linguistic interaction. It then examines findings on speech perception and production. It reviews the acquisition of phonetic and prosodic contrasts, differentiation of acoustic features such as Voice Onset Time and rhythm, and development of syllable structure and segments. Finally, it addresses important themes in early bilingualism such as quantitative and qualitative aspects of language input, the influence of the lexicon, and differences between simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals.