You sound like Mommy: Bilingual and monolingual infants learn words best from speakers typical of their language environments

被引:34
|
作者
Fennell, Christopher [1 ]
Byers-Heinlein, Krista [2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
[2] Concordia Univ, Montreal, PQ, Canada
基金
加拿大自然科学与工程研究理事会;
关键词
bilingualism; infancy; phonological development; word learning; VOICE-ONSET TIME; PHONOTACTIC KNOWLEDGE; PHONETIC DETAIL; FOREIGN ACCENT; PERCEPTION; ENGLISH; ACQUISITION; VARIABILITY; CONTRAST; INPUT;
D O I
10.1177/0165025414530631
中图分类号
B844 [发展心理学(人类心理学)];
学科分类号
040202 ;
摘要
Previous research indicates that monolingual infants have difficulty learning minimal pairs (i.e., words differing by one phoneme) produced by a speaker uncharacteristic of their language environment and that bilinguals might share this difficulty. To clearly reveal infants' underlying phonological representations, we minimized task demands by embedding target words in naming phrases, using a fully crossed, between-subjects experimental design. We tested 17-month-old French-English bilinguals' (N = 30) and English monolinguals' (N = 31) learning of a minimal pair (/k epsilon m/-/g epsilon m/) produced by an adult bilingual or monolingual. Infants learned the minimal pair only when the speaker matched their language environment. This vulnerability to subtle changes in word pronunciation reveals that neither monolingual nor bilingual 17-month-olds possess fully generalizable phonological representations.
引用
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页码:309 / 316
页数:8
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