Negative transfer from Spanish and English to Portuguese pronunciation: The roles of inhibition and working memory. Trude, A M and Tokowicz, N Language Learning. doi abstract bibtex We examined negative transfer from English and Spanish to Portuguese pronunciation. Participants were native English speakers, some of whom spoke Spanish. Participants completed a computer-based Portuguese pronunciation tutorial and then pronounced trained letter-to-sound correspondences in unfamiliar Portuguese words; some shared orthographic form with their translation in Spanish or Spanish and English. Spanish-speaking participants were more accurate and made more Spanish-like than English-like errors. Contrary to predictions, non-Spanish speakers made more Spanish-like than English-like errors on cognates. Participants with higher working memory were more accurate and made more Spanish-sounding errors on cognates. The results suggest that the first language is inhibited during second-language production and that higher working memory is associated with an improved ability to inhibit the first language.
@article{trude_negative_2010,
Author = {Trude, A M and Tokowicz, N},
Date = {2010},
Date-Modified = {2017-04-19 08:04:09 +0000},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00611.x},
Journal = {Language Learning},
Keywords = {English, L2, L2 acquisition, L3, phonetics, Portuguese, Spanish},
Title = {Negative transfer from Spanish and English to Portuguese pronunciation: The roles of inhibition and working memory},
Abstract = {We examined negative transfer from English and Spanish to Portuguese pronunciation. Participants were native English speakers, some of whom spoke Spanish. Participants completed a computer-based Portuguese pronunciation tutorial and then pronounced trained letter-to-sound correspondences in unfamiliar Portuguese words; some shared orthographic form with their translation in Spanish or Spanish and English. Spanish-speaking participants were more accurate and made more Spanish-like than English-like errors. Contrary to predictions, non-Spanish speakers made more Spanish-like than English-like errors on cognates. Participants with higher working memory were more accurate and made more Spanish-sounding errors on cognates. The results suggest that the first language is inhibited during second-language production and that higher working memory is associated with an improved ability to inhibit the first language.},
Bdsk-Url-1 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00611.x}}