Infant-Directed Speech Facilitates Lexical Learning in Adults Hearing Chinese: Implications for Language Acquistion

The effects of infant-directed (ID) speech on English-speaking adults' ability to learn an individual target word in an unfamiliar language (Chinese) was investigated in two experiments (N = 61 & 79 undergraduates) in which Ss heard Chinese speakers read a word in either ID or adult-directe...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child language 1995-10, Vol.22 (3), p.703-726
Main Authors: Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick, Alioto, Anthony
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The effects of infant-directed (ID) speech on English-speaking adults' ability to learn an individual target word in an unfamiliar language (Chinese) was investigated in two experiments (N = 61 & 79 undergraduates) in which Ss heard Chinese speakers read a word in either ID or adult-directed (AD) speech. The Chinese name for the object (the target word) was placed in utterance-final position in experiment 1 & in utterance-medial position in experiment 2. Only Ss who heard ID speech in utterance-final position were able to learn the words. Results suggest that ID speech may assist infants in segmenting & remembering portions of language. Experiment 3, which tested English-speaking adults' (N = 23 undergraduates) ability to distinguish between ID & AD speech, indirectly confirmed the results of experiments 1 & 2 & showed that some prosodic features of English & Chinese ID speech must overlap. Implications for first-language acquisition are discussed. 3 Tables, 2 Figures, 51 References. Adapted from the source document
ISSN:0305-0009