Constraints on Tone Sensitivity in Novel Word Learning by Monolingual and Bilingual Infants: Tone Properties Are More Influential than Tone Familiarity

Abstract

This study compared tone sensitivity in monolingual and bilingual infants in a novel word learning task. Tone language learning infants (Experiment 1, Mandarin monolingual; Experiment 2, Mandarin-English bilingual) were tested with Mandarin (native) or Thai (non-native) lexical tone pairs which contrasted static vs. dynamic (high vs. rising) tones or dynamic vs. dynamic (rising vs. falling) tones. Non-tone language, English-learning infants (Experiment 3) were tested on English intonational contrasts or the Mandarin or Thai tone contrasts. Monolingual Mandarin language infants were able to bind tones to novel words for the Mandarin High-Rising contrast, but not for the Mandarin Rising-Falling contrast; and they were insensitive to both the High-Rising and the Rising-Falling tone contrasts in Thai. Bilingual English-Mandarin infants were similar to the Mandarin monolinguals in that they were sensitive to the Mandarin High-Rising contrast and not to the Mandarin Rising-Falling contrast. However, unlike the Mandarin monolinguals, they were also sensitive to the High Rising contrast in Thai. Monolingual English learning infants were insensitive to all three types of contrasts (Mandarin, Thai, English), although they did respond differentially to tone-bearing vs. intonation-marked words. Findings suggest that infants' sensitivity to tones in word learning contexts depends heavily on tone properties, and that this influence is, in some cases, stronger than effects of language familiarity. Moreover, bilingual infants demonstrated greater phonological flexibility in tone interpretation.

The development of consonant and lexical-tone discrimination between 3 and 6 years: Effect of language exposure

“…Thus, being exposed to various languages, even ones which do not use lexical tone, seems to improve the perception of tones. Similar results have also been observed in a word learning task for bilingual English-Mandarin children at 17 months who were more sensitive to a Thai non-native lexical tone contrast than their monolingual Mandarin peers (Burnham, Singh, Mattock, Woo, & Kalashnikova, 2017). In other studies comparing the effect of consonant, vowel and lexical-tone mispronunciation on word learning abilities, language-specific processing of lexical tone was observed only at 2 years of age (Singh, Goh, & Wewalaarachchi, 2015;Singh, Hui, Chan, & Golinkoff, 2014).…”

The Effects of Lexical Pitch Accent on Infant Word Recognition in Japanese

“…It should be noted that not all types of pitch contrasts are incorporated into lexical information with equal readiness even when the contrasts are present in the ambient language. In Burnham et al (2017) , both monolingual Mandarin-learning and bilingual English-Mandarin 17-month-olds were able to differentiate novel words on the basis of the native Mandarin high vs. rising tone contrast but not on the native rising vs. falling tone contrast. In addition, bilingual English–Mandarin 17-month-olds were capable of using a non-native (Thai) version of the high vs. rising contrast to learn novel words, but not the non-native Thai rising vs. falling contrast.…”

“…In Mandarin learners, it may not be until 4–5 years of age that children can identify certain tonal differences when they appear in intonational phrases with pitch movements that counteract those of lexical tones ( Singh and Chee, 2016 ). The difficulty exhibited by younger Mandarin learners in learning novel lexical contrasts on the basis of the rising vs. falling contrast compared to the high vs. rising contrast may be attributable to the fact that the rising-falling difference also marks an intonational contrast in the language ( Burnham et al, 2017 ).…”

The Use of Pitch Accent in Word–Object Association by Monolingual Japanese Infants

“…Traditionally, most of the research on early word–object association has focused on how infants learn words using segmental features. However, some recent studies have started to shed light on word learning with regard to suprasegmental features such as stress, accent, and lexical tones (e.g., Burnham, Singh, Mattock, Woo, & Kalashnikova, ; Curtin, , ; Curtin, Campbell, & Hufnagle, ; Graf Estes & Hay, ; Hay, Graf Estes, Wang, & Saffran, ; Liu & Kager, ; Singh, Hui, Chan, & Golinkoff, ; Singh, Poh, & Fu, ; see Singh & Fu, for review). In line with these studies, the present work explores the role of suprasegmental features in early lexical acquisition by testing monolingual Japanese infants’ ability to use Japanese lexical pitch accent in word–object associative learning.…”

“…Infants start to learn word and referent associations as early as 6–8 months (e.g., Tincoff & Jusczyk, ) and produce words by the end of their first year. A wide range of studies has suggested that word‐referent learning is influenced by multiple factors such as the learner's current level of vocabulary development (Werker, Fennell, Corcoran, & Stager, ) and language background (Burnham et al., ; Fennell, Byers‐Heinlein, & Werker, ; Singh, ; Singh et al., , ), the familiarity of the word being learned (Fennell & Werker, ), and the presence or absence of synchrony between word presentation and object motion during the task (Gogate, ; see also Gogate & Maganti, ; He & Lidz, for verb‐action learning). Phonetic properties are also known to be influential in word‐referent, especially word–object, learning.…”