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Bilingual Infants Demonstrate Advantages in Learning Words in a Third Language
1National University of Singapore.
Child Development
|May 31, 2017
Summary
Bilingual infants show enhanced ability to learn new words, particularly those with challenging sounds like clicks. This suggests bilingualism supports learning words in diverse languages.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Bilingualism is hypothesized to enhance infants' phonological flexibility.
- Understanding how early language exposure influences cross-linguistic perception is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if bilingual infants exhibit superior word learning abilities in a new language compared to monolingual infants.
- To determine if enhanced perceptual flexibility in bilingual infants extends to nonlinguistic auditory stimuli.
Main Methods:
- Compared 18- to 20-month-old monolingual English and bilingual English/Mandarin infants.
- Assessed word learning using Ndebele click consonants and nonlinguistic auditory labels (hand claps, finger snaps).
Main Results:
- Bilingual infants demonstrated sensitivity to Ndebele click contrasts, unlike monolingual infants.
- Neither group distinguished between words labeled by hand claps and finger snaps, suggesting limitations in nonlinguistic auditory discrimination.
Conclusions:
- Bilingual infants' heightened sensitivity to non-native phonetic contrasts may facilitate learning words in distant languages.
- Early bilingualism appears to foster a sustained openness to novel linguistic sounds, aiding acquisition in new languages.
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