<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Carol,<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There is interesting material on bilingual babies' perception of their two languages, which you will find reviewed in articles by Janet Werker (in McCardle & Hoff, 2006, and Applied Psycholinguistics 2007, volume 28 (3)). (I report on it a little in an article in the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Child Language, edited by Edith Bavin.) The psycholinguistic methodologies show pretty clearly that bilingual babies can distinguish the phonetic/ phonemic characteristics of their two languages "prelinguistically." Whether they can reproduce the differences reliably--again prelinguistically--is still open to debate. But your student should know that there is debate. Our student Ana Navarro summarized various positions in the introduction to her dissertation, part of which is in the ISB4 volume.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>Navarro, A., Pearson, B. Z., Cobo-Lewis, A.B., & Oller, D. K.</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>(2005)</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">. Differentiation in early phonological adaptation? In J. Cohen, K. McAlister, K. Rolstad, & J. MacSwan (Eds.) </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><I>ISB4: Proceedings of the 4 th International Symposium on Bilingualism </I></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">(pp.1690-1702). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Your student's question about mixing the elements of both languages depends on the prior question of when babies can be said to have elements of both languages to mix. </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">There are claims to the contrary--and we think we see some movement away from universal tendencies in production by 11 months--but we think the common claim to hear babies babbling in different languages (bilinguals, or monolinguals in different languages) depends on a combination of expectation on the part of the hearer and the production of early words interspersed in the babbling, which persists for quite some time. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Ana's experiment used early words produced by children 26 months old, and with children that old, listeners were barely able to distinguish the language the child was using when they didn't have the lexical information to guide them. That is not prelinguistic and it doesn't mean that there might not be some nascent tendencies toward differentiation in the acoustics of the speech signal, but the ears *of people who don't know which language they are hearing* don't reliably pick the differences out. (Until computers, it was hard to remove language context in the tapes people used for the studies.) In words (again not babbling), we and others have noted some intrusion of one language in the other, but apparently much less than in the popular idea illustrated in your example. There are also dominance patterns, as you mention, so some children, even simultaneous bilinguals, do show the patterns of only one language. Ana worked with Spanish and English, which may be more similar than French and Chinese, but they are nonetheless rhythmically very different. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Some of the people studying the acquisition of Chinese tones can also weigh in here about how soon after the onset of canonical babbling Chinese children use different tonal patterns. But there's my two-cents. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Till soon,</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Barbara</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001B9A" face="Times" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT><DIV><DIV>On Feb 6, 2008, at 11:21 AM, Carol Slater wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dear All--</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">After a discussion of the influence of local language on babbling, a student asked whether anything was known about babbling in babies who heard two languages regularly. Would they show both influences, e.g., produce French sounds with Chinese tonal differences? Settle for one of the languages? Does anybody have a clue? Many thanks for any information (or reassurance that we don't really know much about it).<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Carol Slater</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Alma College</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Alma MI 48801<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV><BR><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">********************************************************</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Depts. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Research Associate, Coordinator</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">South College 226</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">University of Massachusetts</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Amherst MA 01003</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; ; font-size: 12px; "><BR style="; font-size: 12px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">413.545.5023</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">fax: 545.2792</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; ; font-size: 12px; "><BR style="; font-size: 12px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><A href="mailto:bpearson@research.umass.edu">bpearson@research.umass.edu</A></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><A href="http://www.umass.edu/aae/bp_indexold.htm/">http://www.umass.edu/aae/bp_indexold.htm/</A></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR><br>
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