Psychological significance of production templates in phonological and lexical advance: A cross-linguistic study

Lead Research Organisation: University of York
Department Name: Language and Linguistic Science

Abstract

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Publications

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Ghada Khattab (Author) (2011) Phonological templates in Lebanese Arabic

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Marilyn Vihman (Speaker) (2011) Psychological significance and typology of templates in early word learning

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Sophie Wauquier (Author) (2011) Phonological templates in French

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Tamar Keren-Portnoy (Author) (2011) The effect of production templates on word learning and word recognition

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Vihman (2014) Phonological Development: The First Two Years

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Vihman M (2014) The Role of Production in Infant Word Learning in Language Learning

 
Description We take phonological templates (emergent word-production patterns) to be based on implicit extension of first word-production routines to target forms less similar to those routines. We planned to test the function and origin of templates in relation to (a) rate of vocabulary increase, (b) novel word learning, (c) word form recognition, and (d) differences in the rhythms of Arabic, French and English.
(a) The often mentioned hypothesis that production templates result in faster word learning proved to be a poor parameter to test on its own, given the results of our concurrent comparison of typically developing children and late talkers, in which the strongest templates were seen in children with slow lexical development. To experimentally test the effect of template use on memory and perception, however, we used (b) a book-reading task involving non-words and (c) a word-recognition task involving mispronunciations; both non-words and mispronunciations were designed to match or mismatch a child's template, based on recording and transcription. Our attempts to equate stimuli that are pronounceable for each two-year-old masked any effects on word-learning, with participants generally at chance; however, in the word-recognition study a significantly larger number of children showed faster responses to own-pattern mispronunciations - the first experimental evidence of an effect of phonological templates on perception. (d) Analysis of Arabic, French and English child templates showed strong differences, based on distinct adult-language rhythms (e.g., Arabic medial geminates, French open disyllables, English word-final monosyllables), with individual variability in the time-course of template fading, regardless of ambient language.
Exploitation Route The cross-linguistic findings provide a basis for further study of the guiding role of rhythm in early phonological advance. The study of the effects of production on perception is currently being replicated, with younger children and with eye-tracking, in two labs, in Lisbon and in Stockholm.
Sectors Healthcare