Categorization of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-Learning Infants
نویسندگان
چکیده
It is well-known that children are born with the perceptual ability to discriminate not only native phonetic contrasts, but also non-native ones. However, recent research suggests that not all contrasts are equally discriminable. Children cannot discriminate some acoustically similar phonetic contrasts early in infancy. They need a certain period of exposure with these contrasts to learn to discriminate them. In this study we inquired if similar lexical tones are discriminable in young infants. Mandarin-learning 4-13-month-olds’ categorization of Mandarin rising and dipping tones were assessed in a visual habituation procedure. The results show that infants successfully categorized the two similar tones.
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