title: Mandarin-English Bilinguals Process Lexical Tones in Newly Learned Words in Accordance with the Language Context.
abstract: Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English bilinguals out-performed English speakers, and, for bilinguals, overall accuracy was correlated with Mandarin dominance. Experiment 2 taught 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 25 English speakers novel words with Mandarin-like tones, but English-like phonemes and phonotactics. The Mandarin-dominance advantages observed in Experiment 1 disappeared when words were English-like. Experiment 3 contrasted Mandarin-like vs. English-like words in a within-subjects design, providing even stronger evidence that bilinguals can process tone language-specifically. Bilinguals (N = 58), regardless of language dominance, attended more to tone than English speakers without Mandarin experience (N = 28), but only when words were Mandarin-like-not when they were English-like. Mandarin-English bilinguals thus tailor tone processing to the within-word language context.
authors.affiliation: Center for Research in Language, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.|Departments of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America.|Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, United States of America.
authors.forename: Carolyn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Quam
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sarah C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Creel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism