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Effects of early home language environment II: Speech comprehension and cognitive functions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2017

LILY TAO  and
QING CAI
LILY TAO*
Affiliation:
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, East China Normal University School of Psychology, University of New South Wales
QING CAI
Affiliation:
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, East China Normal University NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science, New York UniversityShanghai
*
Address for correspondence: Lily Tao, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, Chinalily.tao@live.com.au
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Abstract

People who were mostly exposed to English with an accent in the early home environment are more native-like when performing various English tasks, compared to those who were mostly exposed to their non-English heritage language (Tao & Taft, 2016). The present study extends from the work of Tao and Taft (2016), further exploring the effects of early home language environment on linguistic and cognitive outcomes later in life. Three groups of young adult participants who differed in their early home language environment were examined on speech comprehension and executive function tasks. Results showed that people who were exposed mostly to non-English heritage languages have disadvantages relative to native monolingual speakers in the comprehension of certain types of stimuli, but show advantages in their executive functioning. Those exposed mostly to nonstandard English showed a less robust advantage in executive functions over native speakers, and showed no apparent disadvantage in speech comprehension.

Keywords

speech comprehensionaccent comprehensionexecutive functionsheritage languagebilingualism
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 537 - 549
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*The author would like to thank Prof Marcus Taft for assistance and guidance with various aspects of this study. This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31400965) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2016HW021).

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