Antoniou Mark, Chin Jessica L L
The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Front Psychol. 2018 Jan 23;9:1. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00001. eCollection 2018.
A growing number of studies on the acquisition of lexical tone by adult learners have revealed that factors such as language background, musical experience, cognitive abilities, and neuroanatomy all play a role in determining tone learning success. On the basis of these findings, it has been argued that the effectiveness of tone learning in adulthood depends on individual differences in these factors. However, it is not clear whether similar individual differences play an analogous role in tone learning in childhood. Indeed, relatively few studies have made comparisons between how adults and children learn lexical tones. Here, we review recent developments for tone learning in both adults and children. The review covers tone training in a range of contexts, including in naive listeners, in native speakers of other tone languages, in listeners with varying levels of musical experience, and in individuals with speech and hearing disorders. Finally, we discuss the parallels between adult and child tone learning, and provide recommendations concerning how findings in adult tone training can provide insights into tone learning for children by accommodating the needs of individual learners.
越来越多关于成年学习者习得声调的研究表明，语言背景、音乐经验、认知能力和神经解剖结构等因素在决定声调学习成功与否方面都发挥着作用。基于这些发现，有人认为成年后声调学习的效果取决于这些因素的个体差异。然而，目前尚不清楚类似的个体差异在儿童声调学习中是否也起着类似的作用。事实上，相对较少的研究对成人和儿童学习词汇声调的方式进行过比较。在此，我们回顾了成人和儿童声调学习的最新进展。该综述涵盖了一系列情境下的声调训练，包括针对零基础听众、其他声调语言母语者、具有不同音乐经验水平的听众以及有言语和听力障碍的个体。最后，我们讨论了成人和儿童声调学习的相似之处，并就如何通过适应个体学习者的需求，利用成人声调训练的研究结果为儿童声调学习提供见解提出建议。
