Voice onset time in Spanish-English bilinguals: early versus late learners of English

Thirty-two Hispanic speakers of English were evenly divided into two groups based on whether or not their initial learning of English began prior to, or after the age of 12 years. Each group had an even number of males (16) and females (16). The subjects were recorded producing a protocol of 18 basic speech syllables. The first three repetitions (54 tokens) were chosen for analysis. The 1728 tokens were digitized and measured for voice onset time (VOT). Findings support the hypothesis that the VOT values of Hispanics speaking English differ according to whether initial learning of English began prior to or after the age of 12 years. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) found significant main effects of group, place, voice, and gender. Significant interactions were group by voice, and voice by gender.