scholarly journals Early phonology revealed by international adoptees' birth language retention

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (28) ◽  
pp. 7307-7312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoun Choi ◽  
Mirjam Broersma ◽  
Anne Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Korean Language ◽  
Good Discrimination ◽  
Intensive Training ◽  
Language Retention ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
International Adoptees ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
Phonetic Contrasts ◽  
Acquisition Processes

Until at least 6 mo of age, infants show good discrimination for familiar phonetic contrasts (i.e., those heard in the environmental language) and contrasts that are unfamiliar. Adult-like discrimination (significantly worse for nonnative than for native contrasts) appears only later, by 9–10 mo. This has been interpreted as indicating that infants have no knowledge of phonology until vocabulary development begins, after 6 mo of age. Recently, however, word recognition has been observed before age 6 mo, apparently decoupling the vocabulary and phonology acquisition processes. Here we show that phonological acquisition is also in progress before 6 mo of age. The evidence comes from retention of birth-language knowledge in international adoptees. In the largest ever such study, we recruited 29 adult Dutch speakers who had been adopted from Korea when young and had no conscious knowledge of Korean language at all. Half were adopted at age 3–5 mo (before native-specific discrimination develops) and half at 17 mo or older (after word learning has begun). In a short intensive training program, we observe that adoptees (compared with 29 matched controls) more rapidly learn tripartite Korean consonant distinctions without counterparts in their later-acquired Dutch, suggesting that the adoptees retained phonological knowledge about the Korean distinction. The advantage is equivalent for the younger-adopted and the older-adopted groups, and both groups not only acquire the tripartite distinction for the trained consonants but also generalize it to untrained consonants. Although infants younger than 6 mo can still discriminate unfamiliar phonetic distinctions, this finding indicates that native-language phonological knowledge is nonetheless being acquired at that age.

scholarly journals Early childhood language memory in the speech perception of international adoptees

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1123-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANET S. OH ◽  
TERRY KIT-FONG AU ◽  
SUN-AH JUN
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Korean Language ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Language Background ◽  
First Semester ◽  
International Adoptees ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
The Us ◽  
One Year ◽  
Phoneme Identification

ABSTRACTIt is as yet unclear whether the benefits of early linguistic experiences can be maintained without at least some minimal continued exposure to the language. This study compared 12 adults adopted from Korea to the US as young children (all but one prior to age one year) to 13 participants who had no prior exposure to Korean to examine whether relearning can aid in accessing early childhood language memory. All 25 participants were recruited and tested during the second week of first-semester college Korean language classes. They completed a language background questionnaire and interview, a childhood slang task and a Korean phoneme identification task. Results revealed an advantage for adoptee participants in identifying some Korean phonemes, suggesting that some components of early childhood language memory can remain intact despite many years of disuse, and that relearning a language can help in accessing such a memory.

The acquisition of a second language phonology: Interaction of transfer and developmental factors

1982 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Frant Hecht ◽  
Randa Mulford
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Relative Difficulty ◽  
Second Language Phonology ◽  
Developmental Factors ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Naturalistic Setting ◽  
Child Learning

ABSTRACTThe acquisition of a second language phonology is examined with reference to two hypotheses: (1) the developmental position that second language phonology acquisition parallels first language acquisition versus (2) the transfer position that the learner’s phonological knowledge in the first language directly influences acquisition of a second language phonology. These two hypotheses are evaluated in light of data from a six-year-old Icelandic child learning English in a naturalistic setting, with particular emphasis on fricatives and affricates. This child’s phonological acquisition is best accounted for as a systematicinteractionbetween transfer from the first language and developmental processes. Transfer best predicts the relative difficulty of particular segments, while the developmental hypothesis best predicts which sounds will be substituted for those difficult segments.

Development of Phonetic Contrasts in Cantonese Tone Acquisition

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-108
Author(s):  
Peggy Pik Ki Mok ◽  
Vivian Guo Li ◽  
Holly Sze Ho Fung
Keyword(s):  
Inflection Point ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Tone Production ◽  
Acoustic Data ◽  
Natural Production ◽  
Monosyllabic Words ◽  
Phonetic Contrasts ◽  
Transcription Data ◽  
Production Accuracy

Purpose Previous studies showed both early and late acquisition of Cantonese tones based on transcription data using different criteria, but very little acoustic data were reported. Our study examined Cantonese tone acquisition using both transcription and acoustic data, illustrating the early and protracted aspects of Cantonese tone acquisition. Method One hundred fifty-nine Cantonese-speaking children aged between 2;1 and 6;0 (years;months) and 10 reference speakers participated in a tone production experiment based on picture naming. Natural production materials with 30 monosyllabic words were transcribed by two native judges. Acoustic measurements included overall tonal dispersion and specific contrasts between similar tone pairs: ratios of average fundamental frequency height for the level tones (T1, T3, T6), magnitude of rise and inflection point for the rising tones (T2, T5), magnitude of fall, H1*–H2*, and harmonic-to-noise ratio for the low tones (T4, T6). Auditory assessment of creakiness for T4 was also included. Results Children in the eldest group (aged 5;7–6;0) were still not completely adultlike in production accuracy, although two thirds of them had production accuracy over 90%. Children in all age groups had production accuracy significantly higher than chance level, and they could produce the major acoustic contrasts between specific tone pairs similarly as reference speakers. Fine phonetic detail of the inflection point and creakiness was more challenging for children. Conclusion Our findings illustrated the multifaceted aspects (both early and late) of Cantonese tone acquisition and called for a wider perspective on how to define successful phonological acquisition. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.11594853

scholarly journals Early development of abstract language knowledge: evidence from perception–production transfer of birth-language memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 160660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoun Choi ◽  
Anne Cutler ◽  
Mirjam Broersma
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Perceptual Training ◽  
International Adoptees ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
Rate Of Learning ◽  
Relative Production ◽  
Production Success ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Repetition Task

Children adopted early in life into another linguistic community typically forget their birth language but retain, unaware, relevant linguistic knowledge that may facilitate (re)learning of birth-language patterns. Understanding the nature of this knowledge can shed light on how language is acquired. Here, international adoptees from Korea with Dutch as their current language, and matched Dutch-native controls, provided speech production data on a Korean consonantal distinction unlike any Dutch distinctions, at the outset and end of an intensive perceptual training. The productions, elicited in a repetition task, were identified and rated by Korean listeners. Adoptees' production scores improved significantly more across the training period than control participants' scores, and, for adoptees only, relative production success correlated significantly with the rate of learning in perception (which had, as predicted, also surpassed that of the controls). Of the adoptee group, half had been adopted at 17 months or older (when talking would have begun), while half had been prelinguistic (under six months). The former group, with production experience, showed no advantage over the group without. Thus the adoptees' retained knowledge of Korean transferred from perception to production and appears to be abstract in nature rather than dependent on the amount of experience.

Feature Analysis of Segmental Errors in Children With Phonological Disorders

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Forrest ◽  
Michele L. Morrisette
Keyword(s):  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Feature Analysis ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Diagnostic Significance ◽  
Percent Correct ◽  
Phonological Disorders ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Developmental Apraxia

There has been a longstanding controversy about the existence, nature, and differentiation of developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), leading to numerous investigations of characteristics that define this articulatory disorder. An analysis of substitutions relative to target sounds led Thoonen, Maassen, Gabreeëls, and Schreuder (1994) to conclude that children with DAS show a pattern of feature retention in their error productions that contrasted with that of children with normal articulation. This pattern, in which place of articulation was retained in the substituted sound less frequently than manner of production or voicing, was considered by Thoonen et al. to be of diagnostic significance. The current research re-examines this claim by comparing the retention patterns obtained by Thoonen et al. for children suspected of having DAS to patterns for children suspected of having a phonological disorder. An examination of substitutions used by 20 children who were diagnosed with and treated for phonological disorders demonstrated the same pattern of feature retention that was described for children with DAS. The results of this study showed that voicing is maintained most frequently; manner of production is the next most retained feature; and place of articulation is the feature that is retained least often when a substitute is used for a sound that isn't produced correctly. In a second analysis, this pattern of feature retention was compared to children's phonological knowledge as indexed by percent correct underlying representation (PCUR). Contrary to the findings of Thoonen et al., however, the present work found an inverse relationship between retention of place and phonological knowledge. Children with greater phonological knowledge retained place less often than children with more limited phonetic inventories. These patterns of feature retention may be representative of specific development sequences that occur during phonological acquisition.

The role of the L1 grammar in the L2 acquisition of segmental structure

1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia A. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
First Language ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Phonological Interference

Acquisition of segmental structure in first language acquisition is accomplished through the interaction of Universal Grammar and the learner's detection of phonemic contrasts in the input (Rice and Avery, 1995; Brown and Matthews, 1993,1997). This article investigates the acquisition of the English /l–r/,/b–v/ and /f–v/ contrasts by second language learners whose L1s do not contrast these segments. Based on L1 phonological acquisition and infant speech perception research,a model of phonological interference is developed which explains how the influence of the L1 phonology originates and identifies the level of phonological knowledge that impinges upon L2 acquisition. It is proposed that if a learner's L1 grammar lacks the phonological feature that differentiates a particular non-native contrast, he or she will be unable to perceive the contrast and therefore unable to acquire the novel segmental representations. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, two experimental studies were conducted. Experiment 1 investigates the acquisition of /l/ and /r/ by Chinese and Japanese speakers; the acquisition of the /l–r/, /b–v/ and /f–v/ contrasts by Japanese speakers is compared in experiment 2. The results from an AX discrimination task and a picture selection task indicate that successful acquisition of a non-native contrast is constrained by the learner's L1 grammar. Differences between Chinese and Japanese speakers (experiment 1) and differences in the acquisition of several different contrasts among Japanese speakers (experiment 2) are argued to reflect subtle phonological properties of the learners' respective L1s. These findings demonstrate that a speaker's L1 grammar may actually impede the operation of UG, preventing the L2 learner from acquiring a non-native phonemic contrast.

Phonetic processing when learning words

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mélanie Havy ◽  
Camillia Bouchon ◽  
Thierry Nazzi
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
New Words ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Phonetic Contrasts ◽  
Contrast Group ◽  
The Impact

Infants have remarkable abilities to learn several languages. However, phonological acquisition in bilingual infants appears to vary depending on the phonetic similarities or differences of their two native languages. Many studies suggest that learning contrasts with different realizations in the two languages (e.g., the /p/, /t/, /k/ stops have similar VOT values in French, Spanish, Italian and European Portuguese, but can be confounded with the /b/, /d/, /g/ in German and English) poses a particular challenge. The current study explores how similarity or difference in the realization of phonetic contrasts affects word-learning outcomes. Bilingual infants aged 16 months were tested on their capacity to learn pairs of new words, differing by a phonological feature (voicing versus place) on their initial consonant. Two groups of infants were considered: bilinguals exposed to languages (French and either Spanish, Italian or European Portuguese) in which the contrasts tested are realized relatively similarly (“similar contrast” group) and bilinguals exposed to languages (French and either English or German) in which the contrasts are realized very differently (“different contrast” group). In the present word-learning situation, the “similar contrast” bilinguals successfully processed the relevant phonetic detail of the word forms, while the “different contrast” bilinguals failed. The present pattern reveals the impact on word learning of phonological differences between the two languages, which is consistent with studies reporting slight time course differences among bilinguals in phonological acquisition. In line with a larger literature on bilingual acquisition, these results provide further evidence that linguistic similarity or difference in the two languages influences the pattern of bilingual acquisition.

Legal Materials from Latin America and the Caribbean: Some Ideas for Acquisition

1984 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
Ellen G. Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Library ◽  
Good Fortune ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Acquisition Processes ◽  
The University ◽  
Latin American And Caribbean

The proceedings of the fifteenth Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, held at the University of Toronto, June 23-26, 1970, include a number of papers addressing issues relevant to the acquisition of Latin American legal resources. Fourteen years later I would like to report that many of the difficulties described therein have changed sufficiently to allow for the development of orderly selection and acquisition processes. Unfortunately, this is not generally the case. In 1970, Fernando J. Figueredo quoted a Spanish proverb: “suerte te dé Dios, que el saber te vale poco”, or in English, “ask God for luck, since knowledge will be of little help to you”. I suggest that good fortune combined with language knowledge, a familiarity with the legal systems involved, a tenacity of spirit, and a sense of humour are all requisites to the successful pursuit of Latin American and Caribbean legal materials. Since SALALM XV's proceedings are published and available for consultation, I prefer not to review all of the problems outlined there. Instead, this paper will offer what will hopefully be some creative, unusual methods of identifying and locating copies of legal publications.

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