The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2019 May 21;62(5):1243-1257. doi: 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-S-17-0430.
Purpose Previous studies showed early production precedes late perception in Cantonese tone acquisition, contrary to the general principle that perception precedes production in child language. How tone production and perception are linked in 1st language acquisition remains largely unknown. Our study revisited the acquisition of tone in Cantonese-speaking children, exploring the possible link between production and perception in 1st language acquisition. Method One hundred eleven Cantonese-speaking children aged between 2;0 and 6;0 (years;months) and 10 adolescent reference speakers participated in tone production and perception experiments. Production materials with 30 monosyllabic words were transcribed in filtered and unfiltered conditions by 2 native judges. Perception accuracy was based on a 2-alternative forced-choice task with pictures covering all possible tone pair contrasts. Results Children's accuracy of production and perception of all the 6 Cantonese tones was still not adultlike by age 6;0. Both production and perception accuracies matured with age. A weak positive link was found between the 2 accuracies. Mother's native language contributed to children's production accuracy. Conclusions Our findings show that production and perception abilities are associated in tone acquisition. Further study is needed to explore factors affecting production accuracy in children. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7960826.
目的 先前的研究表明，在粤语声调习得中，早期的产生先于晚期的感知，这与儿童语言中感知先于产生的一般原则相反。第一语言习得中，声调的产生和感知是如何联系的，在很大程度上还不得而知。我们的研究重新探讨了粤语儿童的声调习得，探索了第一语言习得中产生和感知之间可能的联系。 方法 111 名 2 岁至 6 岁的粤语儿童和 10 名青少年母语者参加了声调产生和感知实验。30 个单音节词的产生材料在过滤和非过滤条件下由 2 位母语者评判转录。感知准确性基于图片涵盖所有可能的声调对对比的二选一强制选择任务。 结果 到 6 岁时，儿童对所有 6 个粤语声调的产生和感知准确性仍未达到成人水平。产生和感知的准确性都随年龄增长而成熟。发现两者之间存在微弱的正相关。母亲的母语对儿童的产生准确性有影响。 结论 我们的发现表明，在声调习得中，产生和感知能力是相关的。需要进一步研究影响儿童产生准确性的因素。 补充材料 https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7960826.
