Analyzing Changes in VOT in Short-Term L2 Learning in Aging

It is widely assumed that older adults far beyond the Critical Period are unable to learn additional languages. This study aims to counter this notion by showcasing older adults’ pronunciation progress in Spanish and early contrastive influence of learning Spanish for 36 days on their English L1.

Standard Spanish word-initial voiceless stops, /p,t,k/, are normatively produced with short-lag Voice Onset Time (VOT), while, in Standard English, these are always produced with long-lag. Current literature attests that the L2 influences the L1 and vice-versa; thus, due to the bidirectional influence of an individual’s languages’ phonological systems, L1 production should yield marks of L2 interference, even in the early stages of learning the L2. In this study, we test English monolingual older adults learning Spanish via Rosetta Stone for 36 days and a control group of age-matched peers assigned to watch and answer questions about informative scientific videos. Spanish and English Verbal Fluency Task results for the Rosetta Stone group and English Verbal Fluency Task results for the control group are recorded before and after the interventions.

While data collection for this study is currently underway, we hypothesize that due to the repeated exposure to the Spanish phonological system in learning Spanish, the Rosetta Stone group will produce English word-initial /p,t,k/ with a shorter lag VOT than the control group after language training period. (Presented at FPM2025)