Despite the fact that many of the world's languages use lexical tone, the majority of language acquisition studies has focused on non-tone languages. Research on tone languages has typically investigated well-known tone languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. The current study looked at a Limburgian dialect of Dutch that uses lexical pitch differences, albeit in a rather restricted way. Using a visual habituation paradigm, 6- to 12-month-old Limburgian and Dutch infants were tested for their ability to discriminate Limburgian tones. The results showed that both Limburgian and Dutch infants discriminate the Limburgian tones throughout their first year of life. The role of linguistic experience, acoustic salience, and the degree of similarity to the native prosodic system are discussed.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000917000228 | DOI Listing |
PLoS One
January 2025
School of Business, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
Facing the pressure of Sino-US strategic competition, countries in the Asia-Pacific region often adopt hedging strategies to minimize risk and protect their interests. If implemented, these strategies could impact relationships between countries and lead to political instability. Owing to a lack of theoretical evaluation frameworks and methods, few studies have examined the implementation effects of hedging strategies adopted by Asia-Pacific countries amid Sino-US competition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Form Res
January 2025
Faculty of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, India.
Background: The prevalence of hearing loss in infants in India varies between 4 and 5 per 1000. Objective-based otoacoustic emissions and auditory brainstem response have been used in high-income countries for establishing early hearing screening and intervention programs. Nevertheless, the use of objective screening tests in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) such as India is not feasible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Speech Lang Hear Res
January 2025
Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
Purpose: This study investigates how Mandarin-English bilingual students in Canada produce Mandarin tones and how this is influenced by factors such as tone complexity, cross-linguistic influences, and speech input.
Method: Participants were 82 students enrolled in a Chinese bilingual program in Western Canada. Students were recruited from Grades 1, 3, and 5 and divided into two groups based on their home language backgrounds: The heritage language group had early and strong input in Mandarin, and the second language (L2) group received mostly English input at home.
J Commun Disord
December 2024
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Objectives: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the relationships between auditory processing, speech discrimination, and listening and communication abilities in children diagnosed with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) compared to those with normal hearing.
Methods: This was a case-control study involving seventeen participants with a diagnosis of ANSD who used spoken language as their primary mode of communication and wore hearing aids or were unaided and 21 normally hearing controls. All underwent a battery of behavioural measures of hearing, speech perception and auditory processing skills.
JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg
January 2025
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Importance: Noise exposure is a major modifiable risk factor for hearing loss, yet it is not known whether it affects the rate of hearing decline in aging.
Objective: To determine the association of noise exposure history with the rate of pure-tone threshold change per year.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This longitudinal cohort study was conducted in the ongoing community-based Medical University of South Carolina Longitudinal Cohort Study of Age-Related Hearing Loss (1988 to present with the sample based in Charleston, South Carolina, and surrounding area).
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