Social and psychological factors in bilingual speech production: Introduction to the special issue

The pronunciation patterns of bilinguals and their development have been investigated in a number of ways. Generally, a distinction is made between internal linguistic factors, on the one hand, and external social and psychological factors, on the other. Linguistic factors that have been identified as critically affecting L1 and L2 accentual targets include cross-linguistic interactions and language transfer; language universals and markedness; and the similarity of L1 and L2 sounds. The study of linguistic factors contributes significantly to our understanding of the mechanisms that underpin bilingual speech processing and development. This is reflected in the central role that such factors play within current theoretical models in bilingual speech research