Does speaking two languages help you learn words in a tone language?
Bilingual adults picked out the words of a made-up tone language better than monolinguals, while already speaking a tone language (Mandarin) gave no reliable advantage.
Source
Statistical learning of a tonal language: the influence of bilingualism and previous linguistic experience
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Adults listened to a continuous artificial tone-language stream, then chose words over non-words; language-background groups compared across three experiments (2 x 2 tonal experience by bilingualism).
- N
- Experiment 1 (English monolinguals): N not given in the available text; Experiment 2: 24 Mandarin monolinguals and 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals; Experiment 3: 15 non-tonal bilinguals.
- Population
- College-aged adults: English monolinguals, Mandarin monolinguals (China), Mandarin-English bilinguals and non-tonal bilinguals (US university)
- Outcome
- Proportion correct on a word vs non-word forced-choice test after exposure
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What they did
The researchers built an artificial language whose three-syllable words were marked by both syllable and pitch-tone patterns, and played it as an unbroken speech stream. Afterwards listeners had to pick which of two sound strings was a word from the language. They tested English monolinguals, Mandarin monolinguals from China, Mandarin-English bilinguals, and bilinguals whose two languages had no tones (for example English and Spanish).
What they found
English monolinguals did not perform above chance, which was surprising given the redundant cues. Mandarin monolinguals performed above chance (mean accuracy 0.57) but not significantly better than English monolinguals, so tone experience alone gave no reliable edge. Mandarin-English bilinguals did best (0.68) and beat Mandarin monolinguals, and non-tonal bilinguals (0.66) beat English monolinguals; across groups the main effect of bilingualism was significant while tonal experience was not. Musical background did not correlate with accuracy.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Groups were not randomly assigned, so bilinguals may differ from monolinguals in other ways (culture, university, country of testing for the Mandarin monolinguals). The Experiment 1 methods and sample size are missing from the available text, and the non-tonal bilingual group was small and mixed in languages. Performance was measured on a tiny artificial lexicon, and the authors themselves flag ecological validity; the study does not show which mechanism (working memory, inhibitory control, word-length expectations) produces the bilingual advantage.
Key terms
- Statistical learning
- Picking up regularities, such as which syllables tend to follow each other, from exposure alone without instruction.
- Word segmentation
- Working out where one word ends and the next begins in continuous speech, which has no reliable pauses between words.
- Lexical tone
- Pitch patterns that change a word's meaning, as in Mandarin where the same syllable with different tones means different things.
- Transitional probability
- How likely one syllable is to follow another; it is high inside words and lower across word boundaries.
- Bilingual advantage
- The proposal that managing two languages improves general learning or control abilities beyond language itself.
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Quiz yourself
Which group failed to learn the artificial tone language above chance?
Common questions
Why is it surprising that English monolinguals failed?
The language offered two redundant cues to word boundaries (syllables and tones), and adults normally segment simpler artificial languages easily, so failure suggests the unfamiliar tones actively got in the way.
Why did the authors test non-tonal bilinguals?
To separate two explanations for the Mandarin-English bilinguals' success: knowing a tone language versus simply being bilingual. Non-tonal bilinguals also succeeded, pointing to bilingualism.
Why might Mandarin monolinguals struggle with this language?
Spoken Mandarin words are mostly two syllables long, so listeners expecting two-syllable words may have had trouble chunking the three-syllable words of the artificial language.
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