Pitch Ability As an Aptitude for Tone Learning
Anita Bowles is now at Rosetta Stone. The findings reported in this article are based on work supported, in whole or in part, by funding from the United States Government. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of our institutions or any agency of the United States Government. We thank Jessica Bauman, Alia Biller, Allison Blodgett, Greg Colflesh, Ryan Corbett, Joseph Dien, Dimitrios Donavos, Meredith Hughes, Anton Rytting, and Matt Winn for their work on the larger research project associated with this study and Price Bingham, Janet Cook, Eli Cooper, Meg Eden, Christian Frable, and Lora Grasso for help with data collection. Finally, we thank Henk Haarmann, four anonymous reviewers, and other readers for support and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript and Bob Slevc for advice on musical aptitude and for sharing Wing Musical Aptitude Test stimuli.
Abstract
Tone languages such as Mandarin use voice pitch to signal lexical contrasts, presenting a challenge for second/foreign language (L2) learners whose native languages do not use pitch in this manner. The present study examined components of an aptitude for mastering L2 lexical tone. Native English speakers with no previous tone language experience completed a Mandarin word learning task, as well as tests of pitch ability, musicality, L2 aptitude, and general cognitive ability. Pitch ability measures improved predictions of learning performance beyond musicality, L2 aptitude, and general cognitive ability and also predicted transfer of learning to new talkers. In sum, although certain nontonal measures help predict successful tone learning, the central components of tonal aptitude are pitch‐specific perceptual measures.
Number of times cited: 6
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