title: Spoken word recognition in young tone language learners: Age-dependent effects of segmental and suprasegmental variation.
abstract: The majority of the world's languages rely on both segmental (vowels, consonants) and suprasegmental (lexical tones) information to contrast the meanings of individual words. However, research on early language development has mostly focused on the acquisition of vowel-consonant languages. Developmental research comparing sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental features in young tone learners is extremely rare. This study examined 2- and 3-year-old monolingual tone learners' sensitivity to vowels and tones. Experiment 1a tested the influence of vowel and tone variation on novel word learning. Vowel and tone variation hindered word recognition efficiency in both age groups. However, tone variation hindered word recognition accuracy only in 2-year-olds, while 3-year-olds were insensitive to tone variation. Experiment 1b demonstrated that 3-year-olds could use tones to learn new words when additional support was provided, and additionally, that Tone 3 words were exceptionally difficult to learn. Experiment 2 confirmed a similar pattern of results when children were presented with familiar words. This study is the first to show that despite the importance of tones in tone languages, vowels maintain primacy over tones in young children's word recognition and that tone sensitivity in word learning and recognition changes between 2 and 3years of age. The findings suggest that early lexical processes are more tightly constrained by variation in vowels than by tones.
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney 2109, Australia; School of Linguistics and Literature, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610000, China. Electronic address: weiyi.ma@mq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Weiyi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, 117570, Singapore.
authors.forename: Leher
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain, Beijing Language and Culture University, 100066 Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Liqun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D010898:Pitch Perception; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013067:Speech Perception
keywords: Language acquisition; Lexical tone; Speech; Vowel; Word recognition