Week 2 - Ambient language and effects

Question 1

Study on ambient language preference?

Name
Year
Hypothesis
Method
Results

Answer 1

Moon et al. 1993

• Infants will demonstrate a preference for the ambient language
• High amplitude sucking
• Infant shows preference for native language by sucking for longer

Question 2

Prosodic cues

Answer 2

• Rhythm, pitch, volume and stress

- Segmentation based on stress

Question 3

Phonotactic regularities

Answer 3

• eg. /nt/ at end of word not beginning in English

- Babies are sensitive to phonological patterns

Question 4

Allophonic variation

Answer 4

• Detect word boundaries using allophonic cues

- eg. aspiration night rate and nitrate

Question 5

Isolated words

Answer 5

• Infants tend to learn isolated words first

- Brent and Siskind 2001

Question 6

Prosodic and Allophonic cues study

Name
Date
Method
Results

Answer 6

• Hohne and Juscyzk 1994
• High-amplitude sucking
• Could detect difference between /t/ and /k/ and /t/ and aspirated /t/

Question 7

Isolated words study

Name
Date
Method
Results

Answer 7

• Brent and Siskind 2001
• CDI quiestionnaires
• Words in isolation more likely to be acquired early
• Only 9% of mothers speech was isolated words

Question 8

Ambient language effects issues

Answer 8

• Speakers sound different eg. accent
• Phonemes can sound similar
• Individual words sound different eg. said slow or fast
• Phonemes can sound different eg. tens and tense

Question 9

Are adults and infants able to discriminate between contrasting sounds?

Name
Date
Method
Results

Answer 9

• Werker and Tees 1984
• Head-turn procedure
• Thompson adults good at distinguishing because their language uses distinctions
• Babies good, adults bad

Question 10

What does exposure to the ambient language do?

Answer 10

• Leads language perception to become language specific

- Universal listening ends

Question 11

Ambient language adoption study

Name
Date
Method
Results

Answer 11

Choi et al. 2017

• 29 monolingual Dutch speakers adopted from Korea
• Tested on allophonic variants not present in Dutch
• Adoptees were faster, especially those adopted uner 6 months
• Phonological learning must take place before 6 months old

Question 12

Ambient language key points

Answer 12

• From birth babies familiar with rhythm and prosody of ambient language
• Perception of input guided by consonants produced in babble
• Infants can discriminate between phonemic and allophonic properties of language