Targeted adaptation in infants following live exposure to an accented talker

Infants struggle to understand familiar words spoken in unfamiliar accents. Here, we examine whether accent exposure facilitates accent-specific adaptation. Two types of pre-exposure were examined: video-based (i.e., listening to pre-recorded stories; Experiment 1) and live interaction (reading book...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child language 2021-03, Vol.48 (2), p.325-349
Main Authors: PAQUETTE-SMITH, Melissa, COOPER, Angela, JOHNSON, Elizabeth K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accentuation
Adaptation
Adults
Australian English
Babies
Canadian English
Cognitive Mapping
Contrastive Linguistics
English
English as a second language learning
Evidence
Foreign Countries
Infants
Interpersonal Relationship
Language Acquisition
Language Processing
Language Variation
Linguistics
Listening Comprehension
Mandarin
Mandarin Chinese
Native Language
Non-native accent
North American English
Phonemics
Phonetics
Phonology
Preschool children
Pronunciation
Scores
Speaking
Speech Communication
Story Reading
Toddlers
Video Technology
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Development
Vocabulary size
Word Recognition
Young Children
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Summary:Infants struggle to understand familiar words spoken in unfamiliar accents. Here, we examine whether accent exposure facilitates accent-specific adaptation. Two types of pre-exposure were examined: video-based (i.e., listening to pre-recorded stories; Experiment 1) and live interaction (reading books with an experimenter; Experiments 2 and 3). After video-based exposure, Canadian English-learning 15- to 18-month-olds failed to recognize familiar words spoken in an unfamiliar accent. However, after face-to-face interaction with a Mandarin-accented talker, infants showed enhanced recognition for words produced in Mandarin English compared to Australian English. Infants with live exposure to an Australian talker were not similarly facilitated, perhaps due to the lower vocabulary scores of the infants assigned to the Australian exposure condition. Thus, live exposure can facilitate accent adaptation, but this ability is fragile in young infants and is likely influenced by vocabulary size and the specific mapping between the speaker and the listener's phonological system.
ISSN:0305-0009
1469-7602
DOI:10.1017/S030500092000029X