17th International Conference on Infant Studies Baltimore, Maryland, March 2010 Language Discrimination by Infants: Discriminating Within the Native Language Rhythm Class Chad Vicenik; UCLA Megha Sundara; UCLA Christine Kitamura; MARCS, Sydney Thierry Nazzi; LPP, Paris

Background Newborns can discriminate between languages from different rhythm classes (Mehler et al. 1988; Nazzi et al. 1998). By 4 to 5-months, infants develop the ability to discriminate between languages from their native rhythm class (Bosch & Sebastian-Galles 1997; Nazzi, Jusczyk & Johnson 2000). Native Language Age Tested Languages Discriminate? Spanish 4-months & Catalan ü American English 5-months British Eng. Dutch American German û

Background NJJ (2000) posit infants are tuning into specific rhythmic properties of their native language – Native language acquisition hypothesis. Not simply a honing of the rhythm detector – Maturation hypothesis. Or honing in on native rhythmic class – Rhythmic-class acquisition hypothesis.

Present Goals Test American English-learning 5-mo-olds ability to discriminate: American English and Australian English American English and German American English and Dutch NJJ (2000) predict discrimination for all cases – all are native vs. non-native contrasts.

Experiment 1: American vs. Australian Participants: 22 5-mo-old American English-learning infants. Stimuli: 8 passages in American English, 8 passages in Australian English, spoken by female speakers. Procedure: Headturn Preference Paradigm. Familiarized to one dialect, tested on both. Different speakers in familiarization and testing. Average looking time measured. Analysis: RM-ANOVA (BS) Familiarization Language (WS) Test Language (New vs. Familiar)

Experiment 1: American vs. Australian

Experiment 1: American vs. Australian No significant effects. American English-learning 5-mo-olds do not discriminate between American and Australian English. 7

Experiment 2: American English vs. German Participants: 22 5-mo-olds. Stimuli: 8 passages of American English; 8 passages of German. Procedure: As in Exp. 1 Analysis: As in Exp. 1 No significant effects. American English-learning 5-mo-olds do not discriminate between American English and German. 8

Experiment 3: American English vs. Dutch Participants: 18 5-mo-olds. Stimuli: 8 passages of American English; 8 passages of Dutch. Procedure: As in Exp. 1 Analysis: As in Exp. 1 No significant effects. American English-learning 5-mo-olds do not discriminate between American English and Dutch. 9

Conclusions So Far 5-mo-olds cannot discriminate all languages from their native language. Discriminate for American & British English (NJJ 2000), but not for American English & German, Dutch or Australian English Can older infants discriminate these language pairs? We test American English-learning 7-mo-olds ability to discriminate: American English and Australian English American English and German

Experiment 4: American vs. Australian Participants: 15 7-mo-olds. (only 7 American-familiarized, currently) Stimuli: As in Exp. 1 Procedure: As in Exp. 1 Analysis: As in Exp. 1 American English-learning 7-mo-olds do not discriminate between American English and Australian English. 11

Experiment 5: American English vs. German Participants: 16 7-mo-olds. Stimuli: As in Exp. 2 Procedure: As in Exp. 1 Analysis: As in Exp. 1 American English-learning 7-mo-olds can discriminate between American English and German. 12

Conclusions So Far 5-mo-olds cannot discriminate all languages from their native language. Discrimination for some languages (i.e. – German) isn’t seen until 7-months. Others might not be discriminable until even later (i.e. – Australian) Why do 5-mo-olds fail on some within-rhythm class combinations and not others?

What Does Discrimination Depend On? Possible that there is a continuum of difference, mastered at different ages American vs. British >> American vs. German >> American vs. Australian Some evidence for a continuum from logistic regression using prosodic predictors to classify languages. NJJ (2000) suggests discrimination based on rhythmic/durational information Other possible phonetic cues: Segmental information Intonational/Pitch information

What Does Discrimination Depend On? Vicenik & Sundara (2009) tested adults ability to discriminate American English from either German or Australian English. Tested reliance on different cues – intonation or rhythmic. Adults rely on intonational cues over rhythmic cues.

Future Work Test 7-mo-olds’ discrimination between American English and German When intonational cues are removed When segmental cues are removed Check if infants can discriminate between American and Australian English at a later age – e.g. 9-months.

Bibliography and Acknowledgments Bosch, L., & Sebastia´n-Galle´s, N. (1997). Native-language recognition abilities in 4-month-old infants from monolingual and bilingual environments. Cognition, 65, 33–69. Mehler, J., Jusczyk, P. W., Lambertz, G., Halsted, N., Bertoncini, J., & Amiel-Tison, C. (1988). A precursor of language acquisition in young infants. Cognition, 29, 144–178. Nazzi, T., Bertoncini, J., & Mehler, J. (1998). Language discrimination by newborns: Towards an understanding of the role of rhythm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 756–766. Nazzi, T., Jusczyk, P., & Johnson, E. (2000). Language Discrimination by English-Learning 5-Month-Olds: Effects of Rhythm and Familiarity. Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 1–19. Ramus, F., Nespor, M., & Mehler, J. (1999). Correlates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signal. Cognition, 73, 265–292. Vicenik, C., & Sundara, M. (2009). The role of rhythmic and intonational cues in language and dialect discrimination. Poster presented at the 157th meeting of the Acoustic Society of America, Portland, OR. Thanks to: Joseph Randazzo, Constanze Weise, Volker Dellwo, Elizabeth Johnson, and UCLA Phonetics Lab members, and the UCLA COR Faculty Research Grant to MS.