Simultaneous bilingualism and the perception of a language-specific vowel contrast in the first year of life
Simultaneous bilingualism and the perception of a language-specific vowel contrast in the first year of life
复制标题
DOI：
10.1177/00238309030460020801
复制
发表时间：
2003-01-01
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
Sebastián-Gallés, N
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bosch, L;Sebastián-Gallés, N
行为学研究表明，虽然幼儿可以区分许多不同的语音对比，但在生命的第二个学期，发现从一般语言到特定语言的区分模式的转变，元音比辅音更早开始。这种与年龄相关的感知非母语对比的敏感性下降在单语者中普遍得到证实。为了分析双语暴露对母语语音对比感知和语言特异性对比类别的早期构建的影响，我们对来自西班牙语单语、加泰罗尼亚语单语和西班牙-加泰罗尼亚语双语环境的4个月大和8个月大的婴儿进行了熟悉-偏好程序测试，测试了只存在于加泰罗尼亚语：/e/-/epsilon/中的元音对比。正如预期的那样，年幼的婴儿都能够独立于接触的语言而感知到这种对比。然而，到了8个月大的时候，只有来自加泰罗尼亚语单语环境的婴儿成功了。虽然单语西班牙语组的敏感度下降是意料之中的，但双语组的结果挑战了仅仅接触就足以维持感知对比能力的观点。在12个月大时进行的另一项实验表明，双语者最终恢复了辨别能力。综上所述，这些结果表明了双语暴露中知觉重组的特定发展模式。
Behavioral studies have shown that while young infants can discriminate many different phonetic contrasts, a shift from a language-general to a language-specific pattern of discrimination is found during the second semester of life, beginning earlier for vowels than for consonants. This age-related decline in sensitivity to perceive non-native contrasts has been generally attested in monolinguals. In order to analyze the impact of bilingual exposure on the perception of native-sound contrasts and the early building of language-specific contrastive categories, four-month-old and eight-month-old infants from Spanish monolingual, Catalan monolingual and Spanish-Catalan bilingual environments have been tested with a familiarization-preference procedure on a vowel contrast present only in Catalan: /e/-/epsilon/. As expected, younger infants were all able to perceive this contrast, independently of the language of exposure. However, by eight months, only infants from Catalan monolingual environments succeeded. Although the decline in sensitivity with the monolingual Spanish group was expected, the results with the bilingual group challenge the view that mere exposure is enough to maintain the capacity to perceive a contrast. An additional experiment at 12 months of age indicated that bilinguals finally regained discrimination. Together these results suggest a specific developmental pattern of perceptual reorganization in bilingual exposure.