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Abstract
The study explored the influence of second language proficiency on the kinematic duration of single words. Participants produced real and novel words with variable stress targets (e.g., trochaic and iambic) embedded in first language (L1) and second language (L2) sentence frames. Participants were monolingual English speakers (n=10) and Bengali-English bilinguals with early exposure to English (n=10) and late exposure to English (n=10). Bengali was the L1 and English was the L2 for all 20 bilingual participants. Duration of lip movements for the target real and novel words was analysed. Results suggest that kinematic duration of single words was not influenced by speakers' L2 proficiency. However, L2 proficiency influenced foreign accent ratings for the real words, but not the novel words. Kinematic duration and perception of accent were not correlated, which might imply that accent reduction might not always be a direct consequence of shorter word duration.
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to Sharynne McLeod. We are grateful to Lisa Goffman and Janna Berlin for their invaluable assistance with many phases of this work. We are also thankful to Diana Gonzales, Eugene J. Bourgeois II, Ruth Welborn and the two anonymous reviewers. This research was partially supported by National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Deafness and other Communicative Disorders) grant DC04826.
