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ERIC Number: EJ999328
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 35
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1525-0008
EISSN: N/A
Word Segmentation in Monolingual Infants Acquiring Canadian English and Canadian French: Native Language, Cross-Dialect, and Cross-Language Comparisons
Polka, Linda; Sundara, Megha
Infancy, v17 n2 p198-232 Mar-Apr 2012
In five experiments, we tested segmentation of word forms from natural speech materials by 8-month-old monolingual infants who are acquiring Canadian French or Canadian English. These two languages belong to different rhythm classes; Canadian French is syllable-timed and Canada English is stress-timed. Findings of Experiments 1, 2, and 3 show that 8-month-olds acquiring either Canadian French or Canadian English can segment bi-syllable words in their native language. Thus, word segmentation is not inherently more difficult in a syllable-timed compared to a stress-timed language. Experiment 4 shows that Canadian French-learning infants can segment words in European French. Experiment 5 shows that neither Canadian French- nor Canadian English-learning infants can segment two syllable words in the other language. Thus, segmentation abilities of 8-month-olds acquiring either a stress-timed or syllable-timed language are language specific. (Contains 3 tables, 4 figures and 5 footnotes.)
Wiley-Blackwell. 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148. Tel: 800-835-6770; Tel: 781-388-8598; Fax: 781-388-8232; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: http://www.wiley.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada; France
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A