Rhythmic grouping biases in simultaneous bilinguals
- This study provides a novel approach for testing the universality of perceptual biases by looking at speech processing in simultaneous bilingual adults learning two languages that support the maintenance of this bias to different degrees. Specifically, we investigated the Iambic/Trochaic Law, an assumed universal grouping bias, in simultaneous French-German bilinguals, presenting them with streams of syllables varying in intensity, duration or neither and asking them whether they perceived them as strong-weak or weak-strong groupings. Results showed robust, consistent grouping preferences. A comparison to monolinguals from previous studies revealed that they pattern with German-speaking monolinguals, and differ from French-speaking monolinguals. The distribution of simultaneous bilinguals' individual performance was best explained by a model fitting a unimodal (not bimodal) distribution, failing to support two subgroups of language dominance. Moreover, neither language experience nor language context predicted their performance. TheseThis study provides a novel approach for testing the universality of perceptual biases by looking at speech processing in simultaneous bilingual adults learning two languages that support the maintenance of this bias to different degrees. Specifically, we investigated the Iambic/Trochaic Law, an assumed universal grouping bias, in simultaneous French-German bilinguals, presenting them with streams of syllables varying in intensity, duration or neither and asking them whether they perceived them as strong-weak or weak-strong groupings. Results showed robust, consistent grouping preferences. A comparison to monolinguals from previous studies revealed that they pattern with German-speaking monolinguals, and differ from French-speaking monolinguals. The distribution of simultaneous bilinguals' individual performance was best explained by a model fitting a unimodal (not bimodal) distribution, failing to support two subgroups of language dominance. Moreover, neither language experience nor language context predicted their performance. These findings suggest a special role for universal biases in simultaneous bilinguals.…
Author details: | Natalie Boll-AvetisyanORCiDGND, Anjali Bhatara, Annika UngerORCiDGND, Thierry NazziORCiD, Barbara HöhleORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728920000140 |
ISSN: | 1366-7289 |
ISSN: | 1469-1841 |
Title of parent work (English): | Bilingualism : language and cognition |
Publisher: | Cambridge Univ. Press |
Place of publishing: | New York |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2020/02/20 |
Publication year: | 2020 |
Release date: | 2023/10/10 |
Tag: | Iambic; Trochaic Law; rhythm; rhythmic grouping; simultaneous bilingualism; universal bias |
Volume: | 23 |
Issue: | 5 |
Article number: | PII S1366728920000140 |
Number of pages: | 12 |
First page: | 1070 |
Last Page: | 1081 |
Funding institution: | Agence Nationale de la Recherche - Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftFrench; National Research Agency (ANR) [09-FASHS-018, HO-1960/14-1,; HO-1960/15-1, ANR-13-FRAL-0010] |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 41 Linguistik / 410 Linguistik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |