Singh Leher, Quam Carolyn
Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore.
Departments of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2016 Jul;147:111-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.006. Epub 2016 Apr 11.
Bilinguals have the sole option of conversing in one language in spite of knowing two languages. The question of how bilinguals alternate between their two languages, activating and deactivating one language, is not well understood. In the current study, we investigated the development of this process by researching bilingual children's abilities to selectively integrate lexical tone based on its relevance in the language being used. In particular, the current study sought to determine the effects of global conversation-level cues versus local (within-word phonotactic) cues on children's tone integration in newly learned words. Words were taught to children via a conversational narrative, and word recognition was investigated using the intermodal preferential-looking paradigm. Children were tested on recognition of words with stimuli that were either matched or mismatched in tone in both English and Mandarin conversations. Results demonstrated that 3- to 4-year-olds did not adapt their interpretation of lexical tone changes to the language being spoken. In contrast, 4- to 5-year-olds were able to do so when supported by informative within-word cues. Results suggest that preschool children are capable of selectively activating a single language given word-internal cues to language.
双语者尽管掌握两种语言，但只能选择用一种语言进行交流。双语者如何在两种语言之间切换，激活一种语言而停用另一种语言，这个问题尚未得到很好的理解。在当前的研究中，我们通过研究双语儿童根据所使用语言中的相关性来选择性整合词汇声调的能力，来探究这一过程的发展情况。具体而言，当前的研究旨在确定整体对话层面的线索与局部（词内音位结构）线索对儿童在新学单词中声调整合的影响。通过对话叙述向儿童教授单词，并使用多模态偏好注视范式来研究单词识别。在英语和普通话对话中，用声调匹配或不匹配的刺激对儿童进行单词识别测试。结果表明，3至4岁的儿童不会根据所讲的语言来调整对词汇声调变化的理解。相比之下，4至5岁的儿童在词内信息线索的支持下能够做到这一点。结果表明，学龄前儿童能够根据单词内部的语言线索有选择地激活单一语言。
