Name:Reem, Idris

School/Affiliation:University of Toronto, Mississauga

Co-Authors:Jule Hafermann & Christina Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden

Virtual or In-person:In-person

Abstract:

What is the best way for children and adults to learn a new language? Speech and song both have rhythmic properties and rely on pitch variations, but music has a strict rhythmic structure that can entrain ongoing neural activity to the features of incoming speech. We explore how musical elements in song could enhance the L2 acquisition process for children relative to child- and adult-directed speech (CDS and ADS). CDS, which has shorter phrases and pronounced pitch contouring, shorter sentences and more pauses than ADS, has been shown to promote language skills development (Stern et al., 1983; Soderstrom et al., 2008). Previous work illustrated that CDS and song were both better at promoting language learning than adult-directed speech for children and adults (Ma et al., 2020; 2024), but they did not examine whether to-be-learned words in the song condition that fell on or off the beat impacted learning. Dynamical systems models predict that the on-beat words should be learned better than information on the off-beat (Jones & Boltz, 1989); however, models of surprise and salience would predict that the off-beat words should stand out more (Bovolenta et al., 2021), resulting in better learning. Preliminary data show no significant differences in response rates between modalities (CDS, ADS, Song off and on-beat) or between words presented on-beat and off-beat for both adults (n = 20) and children (n = 20). This suggests that differences in the rhythmic characteristics of song and speech may not be crucial in word learning for either group.