Language and Speech Rhythmic Abilities Correlate with L2 Prosody Imitation Abilities in Typologically Different Languages

International audienceWhile many studies have demonstrated the relationship between musical rhythm and speech prosody, this has been rarely addressed in the context of second language (L2) acquisition. Here, we investigated whether musical rhythmic skills and the production of L2 speech prosody are predictive of one another. We tested both musical and linguistic rhythmic competences of 23 native French speakers of L2 English. Participants completed perception and production music and language tests. In the prosody production test, sentences containing trisyllabic words with either a prominence on the first or on the second syllable were heard and had to be reproduced. Participants were less accurate in reproducing penultimate accent placement. Moreover, the accuracy in reproducing phonologically disfavored stress patterns was best predicted by rhythm production abilities. Our results show, for the first time, that better reproduction of musical rhythmic sequences is predictive of a more successful realization of unfamiliar L2 prosody, specifically in terms of stress-accent placement

Musical training predicts cerebello-hippocampal coupling during music listening.

Cerebello-hippocampal interactions occur during accurate spatiotemporal prediction of movements. In the context of music listening, differences in cerebello-hippocampal functional connectivity may result from differences in predictive listening accuracy. Using functional MRI, we studied differences in this network between 18 musicians and 18 nonmusicians while they listened to music. Musicians possess a predictive listening advantage over nonmusicians, facilitated by strengthened coupling between produced and heard sounds through lifelong musical experience. Thus, we hypothesized that musicians would exhibit greater functional connectivity than nonmusicians as a marker of accurate online predictions during music listening. To this end, we estimated the functional connectivity between cerebellum and hippocampus as modulated by a perceptual measure of the predictability of the music. Results revealed increased predictability-driven functional connectivity in this network in musicians compared with nonmusicians, which was positively correlated with the length of musical training. Findings may be explained by musicians’ improved predictive listening accuracy. Our findings advance the understanding of cerebellar integrative function.Peer reviewe

The role of musical aptitude in the pronunciation of English vowels among Polish learners of English

It has long been held that people who have musical training or talent acquire L2 pronunciation more successfully than those that do not. Indeed, there have been empirical studies to support this hypothesis (Pastuszek-Lipińska 2003, Fonseca-Mora et al. 2011, Zatorre and Baum 2012). However, in many of such studies, musical abilities in subjects were mostly verified through questionnaires rather than tested in a reliable, empirical manner. Therefore, we run three different musical hearing tests, i.e. pitch perception test, musical memory test, and rhythm perception test (Mandell 2009) to measure the actual musical aptitude in our subjects. The main research question is whether a better musical ear correlates with a higher rate of acquisition of English vowels in Polish EFL learners. Our group consists of 40 Polish university students studying English as their major who learn the British pronunciation model during an intense pronunciation course. 10 male and 30 female subjects with mean age of 20.1 were recorded in a recording studio. The procedure comprised spontaneous conversations, reading passages and reading words in isolation. Vowel measurements were conducted in Praat in all three speech styles and several consonantal contexts. The assumption was that participants who performed better in musical tests would produce vowels that are closer to the Southern British English model. We plotted them onto vowel charts and calculated the Euclidean distances. Preliminary results show that there is potential correlation between specific aspects of musical hearing and different elements of pronunciation. The study is a longitudinal project and will encompass two more years, during which we will repeat the recording procedure twice to measure the participants’ progress in mastering the English pronunciation and comparing it with their musical aptitude.Fonseca-Mora, M., Toscano-Fuentes, C. and K. Wermke. 2011. "Melodies that help: The Relation between Language Aptitude and Musical Intelligence", Anglistik International Journal of English Studies 22, 1: 101-118.Mandell, J. 2009. Electronic Music and Medical Education. (http://jakemandell.com) (date of access: 9 November 2014).Pastuszek-Lipińska, B. 2008. "Musicians outperform nonmusicians in speech imitation", Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4969: 56-73.Zatorre, R. and S. Baum. 2012. "Musical melody and speech intonation: singing a different tune", PLoS Biology 10, 7: e1001372

Hakka tone training for native speakers of tonal and nontonal languages

Language learning becomes increasingly difficult when novel linguistic features are introduced. Studies have shown that learners from various language backgrounds can be trained to perceive lexical tone, which assigns meaning to words using variations in pitch. In this thesis, we investigated whether native speakers of tonal Mandarin Chinese and tonal Vietnamese outperformed native speakers of nontonal English when learning Hakka Chinese tones following five sessions of tone training, and whether the complexity (i.e., density) of a listener’s native tone inventory facilitated nonnative tone learning. All groups improved in tone identification and tone word learning following training, with improvements persisting three weeks following the cessation of training. Although both tonal groups outperformed the English group in most tasks, the Mandarin group showed the most consistent advantages over the English group across tasks. Findings suggest that tone experience bolsters tone learning, but density of the tone inventory does not provide an advantage. Confusion patterns offer detailed insight of the interaction between nonnative tones and native tonal and intonational categories

The Relationship between Musical Ability and the Perception and Production of L2 Prosodic Features

Studies in L2 acquisition have indicated that musically trained individuals are apt to demonstrate better L2 pronunciation skills. As for music, it was recently clarified that some amusiacs demonstrate selective impairment in L1 prosody discrimination. The purpose of this study was to investigate a relationship between amusical L2 learners and their perception and production of L2 prosody. To investigate this, 24 native-Japanese learners of English either in EFL (n=22) or ESL context (n=2) were examined in terms of their musical ability and L2 intonation perception and production. The musical test indicated that there was one amusiac and 10 low-level musical sufferers in the EFL group. Based on a contrastive analysis between amusical and non-amusical participants, as well as between participant groups with and without musical difficulty, it was found that any level of musical difficulty was correlated with lower auditory processing ability in L2 intonation for these English-language learners. However, the contrastive analysis pertaining to the productive skill indicated that musical difficulty was not associated with their production of accurate L2 intonation patterns. According to these findings, the present study concluded that musical difficulty is only related to these learners\u27 L2 intonation processing. Conversely, the present research found that the ESL learners\u27 learning context appeared to be less associated with their aural performance than with their intonation production. In addition, it was found that the level of previous musical training was related to both better L2 intonation perception and production

Exploring the role of singing, semantics, and amusia screening in speech-in-noise perception in musicians and non-musicians

Sentence repetition has been the focus of extensive psycholinguistic research. The notion that music training can bolster speech perception in adverse auditory conditions has been met with mixed results. In this work, we sought to gauge the effect of babble noise on immediate repetition of spoken and sung phrases of varying semantic content (expository, narrative, and anomalous), initially in 100 English-speaking monolinguals with and without music training. The two cohorts also completed some non-musical cognitive tests and the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). When disregarding MBEA results, musicians were found to significantly outperform non-musicians in terms of overall repetition accuracy. Sung targets were recalled significantly better than spoken ones across groups in the presence of babble noise. Sung expository targets were recalled better than spoken expository ones, and semantically anomalous content was recalled more poorly in noise. Rerunning the analysis after eliminating thirteen participants who were diagnosed with amusia showed no significant group differences. This suggests that the notion of enhanced speech perception – in noise or otherwise – in musicians needs to be evaluated with caution. Musicianship aside, this study showed for the first time that sung targets presented in babble noise seem to be recalled better than spoken ones. We discuss the present design and the methodological approach of screening for amusia as factors which may partially account for some of the mixed results in the field

Musical Hearing and Musical Experience in Second Language English Vowel Acquisition

Purpose: Former studies suggested that music perception can help produce certain accentual features in the first and second language (L2), such as intonational contours. What was missing in many of these studies was the identification of the exact relationship between specific music perception skills and the production of different accentual features in a foreign language. Our aim was to verify whether empirically tested musical hearing skills can be related to the acquisition of English vowels by learners of English as an L2 before and after a formal accent training course. Method: Fifty adult Polish speakers of L2 English were tested before and after a two-semester accent training in order to observe the effect of musical hearing on the acquisition of English vowels. Their L2 English vowel formant contours produced in consonant–vowel–consonant context were compared with the target General British vowels produced by their pronunciation teachers. We juxtaposed these results with their musical hearing test scores and self-reported musical experience to observe a possible relationship between successful L2 vowel acquisition and musical aptitude. Results: Preexisting rhythmic memory was reported as a significant predictor before training, while musical experience was reported as a significant factor in the production of more native-like L2 vowels after training. We also observed that not all vowels were equally acquired or affected by musical hearing or musical experience. The strongest estimate we observed was the closeness to model before training, suggesting that learners who already managed to acquire some features of a native-like accent were also more successful after training. Conclusions: Our results are revealing in two aspects. First, the learners' former proficiency in L2 pronunciation is the most robust predictor in acquiring a native-like accent. Second, there is a potential relationship between rhythmic memory and L2 vowel acquisition before training, as well as years of musical experience after training, suggesting that specific musical skills and music practice can be an asset in learning a foreign language accent.This research was supported by the National Science Centre in Poland, Grant 2014/15/N/HS2/03865.64516661682Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Researc

The Relationship between Musical Ability and the Perception and Production of L2 Prosodic Features

Studies in L2 acquisition have indicated that musically trained individuals are apt to demonstrate better L2 pronunciation skills. As for music, it was recently clarified that some amusiacs demonstrate selective impairment in L1 prosody discrimination. The purpose of this study was to investigate a relationship between amusical L2 learners and their perception and production of L2 prosody. To investigate this, 24 native-Japanese learners of English either in EFL (n=22) or ESL context (n=2) were examined in terms of their musical ability and L2 intonation perception and production. The musical test indicated that there was one amusiac and 10 low-level musical sufferers in the EFL group. Based on a contrastive analysis between amusical and non-amusical participants, as well as between participant groups with and without musical difficulty, it was found that any level of musical difficulty was correlated with lower auditory processing ability in L2 intonation for these English-language learners. However, the contrastive analysis pertaining to the productive skill indicated that musical difficulty was not associated with their production of accurate L2 intonation patterns. According to these findings, the present study concluded that musical difficulty is only related to these learners\u27 L2 intonation processing. Conversely, the present research found that the ESL learners\u27 learning context appeared to be less associated with their aural performance than with their intonation production. In addition, it was found that the level of previous musical training was related to both better L2 intonation perception and production