Abstract
Dutch infants and adults are tested on their discrimination of a lexical tone contrast in Mandarin Chinese and a manipulated tone contrast differing solely in acoustic salience. Results show homogeneous tone discrimination pattern between adults and infants as early as 8-9 months. Specifically, Dutch infants and adults discriminate acoustic salient tonal contrast. When the salience is weakened, Dutch adults and infants after tonal perceptual reorganization phase fail to discriminate the non-native contrast. Their sensitivity is however enhanced with the help of statistical learning or training effect, showing the flexibility of non-native tone perception.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Shanghai, China, May 22-25, 2012 |
| Publisher | Tongji University Press |
| Pages | 346-349 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9787560848693 |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
| Event | Speech Prosody - Duration: 20 May 2014 → … |
Conference
| Conference | Speech Prosody |
|---|---|
| Period | 20/05/14 → … |
Keywords
- Chinese language
- second language acquisition
- speech perception
- tone (phonetics)