Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 30, 2026

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
Production of a Catalan-specific vowel contrast by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals
1Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. simonet@email.arizona.edu
Abstract:
The present study investigates the acoustics (F1 × F2) of Catalan and Spanish mid-back vowels as produced by highly proficient, early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals residing on the island of Majorca, a bilingual speech community. Majorcan Catalan has two phonemic mid-back vowels in stressed positions (/o/ and /c/) while Spanish possesses only one (/o/). Two groups of bilinguals were recruited and asked to produce materials in both languages - one group of Spanish dominant and one of Catalan-dominant speakers. It was first found that Catalan and Spanish /o/ are virtually indistinguishable. Catalan /c/ is lower and more fronted than the other two vowels. Spanish-dominant bilinguals were found to differ from Catalan-dominant ones in that they did not produce the Catalan-specific /o/-/c/ contrast in their speech; that is, they produced a single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel. A within-subjects analysis of first- and second-language mid-back vowels further suggested, for Spanish-dominant bilinguals, that they had developed a separate vowel category to accommodate their single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel; that is, they possessed a two-category mid-back vowel system, i.e. one for their Spanish /o/ and one for their merged Catalan /o/ + /c/. Potential explanations and theoretical implications are discussed.
Related Concept Videos
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Lateralization
Components of Language
Language and Cognition
Catalysis
Catalysis

