Speech segmentation in infants and the effects of language exposure
Jennifer Proulx & Linda PolkaSCSD, McGill
Abstract
Infants become familiar with the rhythm of their native language, and use these cues to assist them in word segmentation. Segmentation skills can be transferred to other rhythmically similar languages, but not to rhythmically different ones. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate the segmentation strategies of bilinguals. Previous cross-linguistic comparisons have only been in one language. However, within group comparisons that investigate both languages in one, single session, provide more direct tests of segmentation. The objective of this study was to investigate the emergence of segmentation in bilingual and monolingual infants in a single session. Both French and English monolinguals segmented in their native language but not their rhythmically different, non-native one. These results replicate previous findings while reducing attrition and thereby prove that testing within one single session is feasible.
