Production benefits of childhood overhearing

Abstract

The current study assessed whether overhearing Spanish during childhood helps later Spanish pronunciation in adulthood. Our preliminary report based on a subset of the data [Au et al., Psychol. Sci. 13, 238-243 (2002)] revealed that adults who overheard Spanish during childhood had better Spanish pronunciation, but not better morphosyntax, than adult learners of Spanish who had no childhood experience with Spanish. We now present data from the full sample with additional morphosyntax and pronunciation assessments, as well as measures to help rule out possible confounding prosodic factors such as speech rate, phrasing, and stress placement. Three groups of undergraduates were compared: 15 Spanish-English bilinguals (native Spanish speakers), 15 late learners of Spanish who overheard Spanish during childhood (childhood overhearers), 15 late learners of Spanish who had no regular experience with Spanish until middle or high school (typical late L2 learners). Results confirmed a pronunciation advantage for the childhood overhearers over the typical late L2 learners on all measures: phonetic analyses (VOT and degree of lenition), accent ratings (phoneme and story production), but no benefit in morphosyntax. Importantly, the pronunciation advantage did not seem attributable to prosodic factors. These findings illustrate the specificity of overhearers' advantage to phonological production.

Salvaging a childhood language

“…These language-background selfreports have been found to correspond well with independent reports from informants who knew the participants during childhood (Au et al, 2002;Knightly et al, 2003). From these participants, who had all taken about 3 to 5 years of Spanish classes beginning in high school, we identified 10 childhood speakers (mean age = 22.2; all female) who reported speaking Spanish regularly for at least three years in early childhood (M = 30.8 hrs/wk, SE = 2.2).…”

“…Together, our studies of adult re-learners of Spanish and Korean have documented measurable benefits of childhood language experience for phonology (Au et al, 2002;Knightly et al, 2003;Oh et al, 2003). In our present study, we looked for analogous benefits for grammar.…”

“…We also recruited 25 native Spanish speakers (mean age = 20.9; 72% female) at UCLA for comparison. A portion of the data from about half of the participants in the comparison groups has been reported earlier (Au et al, 2002;Knightly et al, 2003), specifically, 13 out of 25 native speakers, 13 out of 20 childhood overhearers, and 14 out of 39 typical late-L2-learners.…”

“…Participants were asked to say 36 target words containing one of the target Spanish phonemes / p, t, k, b, d, g/ in initial or medial position (e.g., /b/ in base 'base' and cabeza 'head'; see Knightly et al, 2003 for a complete list) embedded in the sentence frame "Diga (target word) por favor," meaning "Say (target word) please." All of the sentences produced by each participant were rated by 16 native speakers of Spanish using a 5-point scale (1 = very strong foreign accent, definitely non-native; 5 = no foreign accent, definitely native; adopted from Bongaerts, Van Summeren, Planken, & Schils, 1997).…”

“…We did not assess morphosyntax in our earlier study of childhood hearers and speakers of Korean . We did assess the Spanish morphosyntax of childhood overhearers but did not find any measurable benefits (Au et al, 2002;Knightly et al, 2003). In this study, we will compare childhood speakers and childhood hearers to hunt for possible benefits of speaking a language during early childhood, especially in the domain of grammar.…”