Immediate phonetic interference in code-switching and interpreting

VOT of English voiceless stops produced by L1dominant Czech-English bilinguals is examined in light of three hypotheses: (1) switching languages induces an immediate increase in L1 interference, (2) speakers experienced with switching languages show less immediate interference, and (3) interpreting induces greater interference than codeswitching. Eighteen bilinguals, trained vs beginning interpreters, produced short sentences in a modified delayed repetition / translation task under three conditions: L2-only, code-switching into L2, and interpreting into L2. An effect of short-term L1 interference was observed: the speakers produced shorter, i.e. more L1-like, VOTs in code-switching and interpreting than in the L2-only condition, though the VOT reduction interacted with the place of articulation differently for speakers with more and less native-like VOTs. The effect was weaker for trained interpreters, giving some support to the second hypothesis. The type of the bilingual task (code-switching vs interpreting) did not affect VOT.