What is it about?
Non-tone-language-learning infants (e.g., Dutch) reduce their sensitivity to tones in the first year of life, but the sensitivity recovers in the second year, and eventually non-tone language adults can discriminate tones from a tone language (e.g., Mandarin). This recovery time window for bilingual infants has been found to be 6 month earlier than monolinguals in the second year of life.
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Why is it important?
Bilingual advantage in early language development is rare, since it is commonly believed that learning two languages at the same time may hinder the speed of language acquisition. It has been argued that bilingual infants keep the same pace as their monolingual peers. The advantages may tell us why bilinguals keep such pace and what cues (different from monolinguals) they may adopt in learning.
Perspectives
I find it interesting when comparing this finding to studies showing bilingual delay in speech perception. We need to understand what infants are listening to, why they show distinct patterns, and what are the influential factors and/or mechanisms behind these observations.
Dr Liquan Liu
Western Sydney University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Perception of tones by bilingual infants learning non-tone languages, Bilingualism Language and Cognition, February 2016, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1366728916000183.
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