1. 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

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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)

6. Experiment 1: American vs. Australian

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

8. Experiment 2: American English vs. German
Participants: 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Experiment 4: American vs. Australian
Participants: 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

12. Experiment 5: American English vs. German
Participants: 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

13. 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?

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.