Assoc. Prof. Izabelle Grenon from Tokyo University is going to virtually visit METU Language and Cognitive Development Lab on 14 January and will present about learning sound contrasts in first and second language acquisition. Please contact us via lang.cog.lab.metu@gmail.com and the further details will be sent to the provided contact e-mail.

Date: 14th January, 2021

Time: 14:30

Platform: Zoom

Abstract: 

Learning sound contrasts is a unique domain of language acquisition, as babies are born with an innate perceptual ability that enables them to  distinguish speech sounds from all the languages of the world. In contrast, lexical acquisition begins from zero as every word form must be encoded in memory one by one and associated with a concept or meaning. That is, while lexical acquisition can be said to require building up the lexicon, sound acquisition involves narrowing down the innate abilities to only the contrasts active in the language (or languages) the infant is exposed to. This talk is interested in how these differences may impact the acquisition of a second language later in life, with a focus on the acquisition of sounds. The main question addressed is whether adults can re-learn to perceive the sound contrasts that were pruned during infancy. I will review what we know about sound acquisition in a first language, and discuss how the study of sound acquisition in a second language during adulthood is complicated by other considerations, such as interference from the phonotactic constraints and the processing of acoustic cues in the first language, as well as from methodological issues. We will then consider theoretical hypotheses about the possible mechanisms responsible or involved in sound acquisition, and how we plan to test those hypotheses in our future research project.