Phonological competition in casual speech

Abstract

The natural processes affecting spontaneous speech production and the natural processes of spoken-word recognition combine to cause significant activation of irrelevant lexical competitors. Using eye-tracking, we show that reduced forms of words that occur in casual speech cause listeners to activate lexical candidates that resemble the reduced form but are quite unlike the canonical form of the intended word. In L2, the problem is worse: casual speech processes that occur in the L2 but not in the L1 lead to activation of irrelevant competitors even where native listeners experience no such competition.