Chapter 5. When three equals tree

In this study, we used auditory priming to examine the phonological content of lexical entries for adult second language speakers. In particular, we investigated whether, for native speakers of Quebec French, words like they and day as well as three and tree have identical (i.e., homophonous) phonological forms in these speakers’ lexicons, which would explain these speakers’ difficulty producing and perceiving words containing difficult /ð/ and /θ/ consonants. We found that our participants did not distinguish between these pairs of words in their lexicons, but were able to produce at least some of the words containing English /ð/ and /θ/ accurately. We discuss both theoretical and pedagogical implications of these findings.