Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 23, 2026

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
The acoustic properties of bilingual infant-directed speech
D Kyle Danielson1, Amanda Seidl2, Kristine H Onishi3
1Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada kdanielson@psych.ubc.ca.
Abstract:
Does the acoustic input for bilingual infants equal the conjunction of the input heard by monolinguals of each separate language? The present letter tackles this question, focusing on maternal speech addressed to 11-month-old infants, on the cusp of perceptual attunement. The acoustic characteristics of the point vowels /a,i,u/ were measured in the spontaneous infant-directed speech of French-English bilingual mothers, as well as in the speech of French and English monolingual mothers. Bilingual caregivers produced their two languages with acoustic prosodic separation equal to that of the monolinguals, while also conveying distinct spectral characteristics of the point vowels in their two languages.
Related Concept Videos
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Language and Cognition
Lateralization
Components of Language

