The influence of the native language on phonological preparation in spoken word production in a second language

Three experiments investigated the phonological preparation unit in planning English spoken words, comparing English monolinguals, native Chinese and Japanese-speakers who spoke English as their second language. All three groups named pictures in English, and the names could either share the same initial phoneme, mora, or syllable, or had no systematic commonality. A phoneme preparation effect was shown among English monolinguals but not among the two bilingual groups, suggesting that the phoneme is the phonological preparation unit for English monolinguals, but not for the two bilingual groups. All three groups showed mora and syllable preparation effects, but further analysis and a follow-up experiment suggested that Chinese-English bilinguals may treat morae as open syllables. English monolinguals showed similar phoneme and mora preparation effect sizes, possibly as a result of flexibility. Together, the selection of phonological preparation could be flexible, influenced by both the nature of the target language and speakers' language experiences.