Mandarin-English Bilinguals Process Lexical Tones in Newly Learned Words in Accordance with the Language Context

Abstract

Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English bilinguals out-performed English speakers, and, for bilinguals, overall accuracy was correlated with Mandarin dominance. Experiment 2 taught 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 25 English speakers novel words with Mandarin-like tones, but English-like phonemes and phonotactics. The Mandarin-dominance advantages observed in Experiment 1 disappeared when words were English-like. Experiment 3 contrasted Mandarin-like vs. English-like words in a within-subjects design, providing even stronger evidence that bilinguals can process tone language-specifically. Bilinguals (N = 58), regardless of language dominance, attended more to tone than English speakers without Mandarin experience (N = 28), but only when words were Mandarin-like—not when they were English-like. Mandarin-English bilinguals thus tailor tone processing to the within-word language context.

Attrition Effects in Mandarin-English Bilinguals of Varying Proficiencies

“…This study continues a line of research begun by Quam and Creel (2017a), who found that native Mandarin speakers who have become English dominant show attrition in their ability to access lexical tone information. Quam and Creel offered two explanations for their finding.…”

“…In an event-related potential (ERP) study of neural responses to speech, Schirmer, Tang, Penney, Gunter, and Chen, (2005) found that altering the rime (the central vowel and possibly the last consonant of a word) of an anticipated word created the same N400 ERP (the "confusion" response) as altering the tone of the anticipated word, implying that tones play just as important a role in identifying words in a speech stream as segments. Taken together, Malins and Joanisse (2010) and Schirmer et al (2005) challenge the first explanation put forward in Quam and Creel (2017a): that lexical tone is more prone to attrition because of how the brain stores and accesses this information.…”

“…"), but either inflection refers to the same object: a drinking vessel. Quam and Creel (2017a) are not the first to suggest that lexical tone is stored separately and accessed differently in the brain than segments (the consonants and vowels of a language). Burnham et al (2011) found that in Thai, Cantonese and Australian English speakers, tonal awareness (metalinguistic awareness of lexical tones) lagged behind segmental awareness (metalinguistic awareness of the consonants and vowels of a word) at every education level tested, up to adults with post-secondary education.…”

Language selective or non-selective in bilingual lexical access? It depends on lexical tones!

“…In addition, at the theoretical level, our current findings shed light on the mechanism of pitch processing. A large but under-researched theoretical debate in the literature of Speech Perception is whether the processing of pitch contours during word recognition is language context sensitive [67,68]. Here, language context could be the language mode of communication (e.g., the language of the conversation) or some specific acoustic-phonetic cues within a word or sentence.…”

The Application of Modern Education in General Biology Course

“…Classroom teaching situation is good or bad, directly affecting the quality of fostering talents [2]. General education curriculum is the key factor for implementing general education ideas and goals.…”