Research

Image credit: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/cogsci/program/major/

The main research program I have undertaken is couched within phonetic and psycholinguistic approaches to bilingualism. It aims to provide new insights on how bilinguals perceive speech and process words. It is well established that the sound system of each language influences not only how adult bilinguals produce words, but also how they perceive speech and recognize spoken words. The precise nature of this influence, however, has yet to be understood and adequately explained. The objectives of the research program I have undertaken are:

to determine how similarities between the sounds of a bilingual's two languages affect speech perception and spoken word recognition;
to clarify how the lexical encoding of cues in one language influences speech perception and spoken word recognition in the other language;
to establish the degree to which listeners can alter their weighting of cues when learning to perceive sounds and recognize spoken words in the second language; and
to identify perceptual training stimuli and methods that enable listeners to improve their cue weightings in speech perception and spoken word recognition.

Much of the research I have conducted sheds light on these issues by examining adult second-language learners’ perception of prosodic information (an under-investigated area of second-language research), focusing on the use of intonational cues in speech segmentation and on the use of lexical stress in speech perception and spoken word recognition.

Selected Papers

Kim, H. & Tremblay, A. (2021). Korean listeners’ processing of suprasegmental lexical contrasts in Korean and English: A cue-based transfer approach. Journal of Phonetics, 87, 1–15.
Tremblay, A., Broersma, M., Zeng, Y., Kim, H., Lee, J., & Shin, S. (2021). Dutch listeners’ perception of English lexical stress: A cue-weighting approach. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 149, 3703–3714.
Tremblay, A. (2021). The past, present, and future of stress in second-language word production and recognition. In R. Wayland (Ed.), Second language speech learning: Theoretical and empirical progress (pp. 175–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tremblay, A., Kim, S., Shin, S., & Cho, T. (2021). Re-examining the effect of phonological similarity between the native- and second-language intonational systems in second-language speech segmentation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24, 401–413.
Jongman, A., & Tremblay, A. (2020). Word prosody in L2. In C. Gussenhoven & A. Chen (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language prosody (pp. 594–604). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Qin, Z., Tremblay, A., & Zhang, J. (2019). Influence of within-category tonal information in the recognition of Mandarin-Chinese words by native and non-native listeners: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Phonetics, 73, 144–157.
Tremblay, A., Cho, T., Kim, S., & Shin, S. (2019). Phonetic and phonological effects of tonal information in the segmentation of Korean speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 40, 1221–1240.
Connell, K., Hüls, S., Martínez-García, M. T., Qin, Z., Shin, S., Yan, H., & Tremblay, A. (2018). English learners’ use of segmental and suprasegmental cues to stress in lexical access: An eye-tracking study. Language Learning, 68, 635–668.
Tremblay, A., Broersma, M., & Coughlin, C. E. (2018). The functional weight of a prosodic cue in the native language predicts speech segmentation in a second language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 21, 640–652.
Tremblay, A., Spinelli, E., Coughlin, C. E., & Namjoshi, J. (2018). Syntactic cues take precedence over distributional cues in native and non-native speech segmentation. Language and Speech, 61, 615–631.
Darcy, I., Simonet, M., & Tremblay, A. (Eds.). (2017). Language Sciences series: Phonology in the bilingual and bidialectal lexicon. Frontiers in Psychology.
Qin, Z., Chien, Y.-F., & Tremblay, A. (2017). Processing of word-level stress by Mandarin-Speaking second-language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38, 541–570.
Tremblay, A., & Coughlin, C. E. (2017). Cue-weighting mechanism and bilingualism. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 708–709.
Tremblay, A., Namjoshi, J., Spinelli, E., Broersma, M., Cho, T., Kim, S., Martínez-García, M. T., & Connell, K. (2017). Experience with a second language affects the use of fundamental frequency in speech segmentation. PLoS One, 12, e0181709.
Gaillard, S., & Tremblay, A. (2016). Oral proficiency assessment in second language acquisition research: The Elicited Imitation Task. Language Learning, 66, 419–447.
Reichle, R., Tremblay, A., & Coughlin, C.E. (2016). Working memory capacity in L2 processing. Probus, 28, 29–55.
Tremblay, A. (2016). Linguistic convergence/divergence or degree of bilingualism? Journal of French Language Studies, 26, 167–170.
Tremblay, A., Broersma, M., Coughlin, C. E., & Choi, J. (2016). Effects of native language on the use of fundamental frequency in non-native speech segmentation. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 985.
Coughlin, C. E., & Tremblay, A. (2015). Morphological decomposition in native and non-native French speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18, 524–542.
Felker, E., Tremblay, A., & Golato, P. (2015). Traitement de l’accord dans la parole continue chez les apprenants anglophones tardifs du français. Arborescences, 5, 28–62.
Huensch, A., & Tremblay, A. (2015). Effects of perceptual phonetic training on the perception and production of second language syllable structure. Journal of Phonetics, 52, 105–120.
Kim, E., Baek, S., & Tremblay, A. (2015). The role of island constraints in second language sentence processing. Language Acquisition, 22, 384–426.
Tremblay, A., & Spinelli, E. (2014). English listeners' use of distributional and acoustic-phonetic cues to liaison in French: Evidence from eye movements. Language and Speech, 57, 310–337.
Coughlin, C. E., & Tremblay, A. (2013). Proficiency and working-memory-based explanations for non-native speakers' sensitivity to agreement in sentence processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 34, 615–646.
Tremblay, A., & Spinelli, E. (2013). Segmenting liaison-initial words: The role of predictive dependencies. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28, 1093–1113.
Trude, A., Tremblay, A., & Brown-Schmidt, S. (2013). Limitations on adaptation to foreign accents. Journal of Memory and Language, 69, 349–367.
Kandel, S., Spinelli, E., Tremblay, A., Guerassimovitch, H., & Alvarez, C. (2012). Processing prefixes and suffixes in handwriting production. Acta Psychologica, 140, 187–195.
Tremblay, A., Coughlin, C. E., Bahler, C., & Gaillard, S. (2012). Differential contributions of prosodic cues in the native and non-native segmentation of French speech. Laboratory Phonology, 3, 385–423.
Tremblay, A. (2011a). Proficiency assessment standards in second language acquisition research: “Clozing” the gap. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 339–372.
Tremblay, A. (2011b). Learning to parse liaison-initial words: An eye-tracking study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 257–279.
Tremblay, A., & Owens, N. (2010). The role of acoustic cues in the development of (non-)target-like L2 prosodic representations. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 55, 85–114.
Tremblay, A. (2009). Phonetic variability and the variable perception of L2 word stress by French Canadian listeners. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13, 35–62.
Demuth, K., & Tremblay, A. (2008). Prosodically conditioned variability in children's production of French determiners. Journal of Child Language, 35, 99–127.
Tremblay, A. (2008). Is L2 lexical access prosodically constrained? On the processing of word stress by French Canadian L2 learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29, 553–584.