A significant challenge to understanding the phonetics of CS arises from the fact that bilingual phonology, in general, is much understudied. Not all bilinguals are accent free in both languages and it is quite likely that even those who pass as monolinguals differ substantially from true monolinguals at the phonetic level. Thus, it is imperative that researchers examine bilinguals’ CS behavior in relation to the participants’ own monolingual performance. In addition, researchers repeatedly
Underscore the highly variable nature of bilingual phonetic
Performance; even bilinguals of virtually identical sociolinguistic profiles can behave quite differently at the phonetic level.