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Infant learning of words in a typologically distant nonnative language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2020

Hui CHEN ,
Dahliane LABERTONIÈRE ,
Hintat CHEUNG  and
Thierry NAZZI
Hui CHEN*
Affiliation:
CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris, France Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
Dahliane LABERTONIÈRE
Affiliation:
CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris, France Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
Hintat CHEUNG
Affiliation:
The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Thierry NAZZI
Affiliation:
CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris, France Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
*
*Corresponding author: Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Université Paris Descartes, Université de Paris, Paris, France. E-mail: hui.chen@parisdescartes.fr
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Abstract

Infants attune to their native language during the first two years of life, as attested by decreases in the processing of nonnative phonological sounds and reductions in the range of possible sounds accepted as labels for native words. The present study shows that French-learning infants aged 1;8 can learn new words in an unfamiliar language, Cantonese, after just 6 repetitions of each word. This shows that word learning in a nonnative language remains possible during the second year of life even in a nonnative language that is typologically distinct from the native language.

Keywords

early language acquisitionword learninglanguage attunementFrenchCantonese
Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 47 , Issue 6 , November 2020 , pp. 1276 - 1287
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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