Early phonology revealed by international adoptees' birth language retention
- Authors
- Choi, JY (Choi, Jiyoun); Broersma, M (Broersma, Mirjam); Cutler, A (Cutler, Anne)
- Issue Date
- Jul-2017
- Publisher
- NATL ACAD SCIENCES
- Keywords
- adoption; language acquisition; language memory; phonology
- Citation
- PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v.114, no.28, pp 7307 - 7312
- Pages
- 6
- Journal Title
- PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- Volume
- 114
- Number
- 28
- Start Page
- 7307
- End Page
- 7312
- URI
- https://scholarworks.sookmyung.ac.kr/handle/2020.sw.sookmyung/146972
- DOI
- 10.1073/pnas.1706405114
- ISSN
- 0027-8424
1091-6490
- Abstract
- Until at least 6 mo of age, infants show good discrimination for familiar phonetic contrasts (i.e., those heard in the environmental language) and contrasts that are unfamiliar. Adult-like discrimination (significantly worse for nonnative than for native contrasts) appears only later, by 9-10 mo. This has been interpreted as indicating that infants have no knowledge of phonology until vocabulary development begins, after 6 mo of age. Recently, however, word recognition has been observed before age 6 mo, apparently decoupling the vocabulary and phonology acquisition processes. Here we show that phonological acquisition is also in progress before 6 mo of age. The evidence comes from retention of birth-language knowledge in international adoptees. In the largest ever such study, we recruited 29 adult Dutch speakers who had been adopted from Korea when young and had no conscious knowledge of Korean language at all. Half were adopted at age 3-5 mo (before native-specific discrimination develops) and half at 17 mo or older (after word learning has begun). In a short intensive training program, we observe that adoptees (compared with 29 matched controls) more rapidly learn tripartite Korean consonant distinctions without counterparts in their later-acquired Dutch, suggesting that the adoptees retained phonological know
- Files in This Item
-
Go to Link
- Appears in
Collections - 사회과학대학 > 사회심리학과 > 1. Journal Articles
Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.