Study Shows That Babies Can Detect Different Languages

Babies understand that people who speak different languages use words differently, according to a study.

AsianScientist (Jan. 13, 2014) – Babies can detect language differences and they understand that people who speak different languages use words differently, according to a study by researchers at the University of Auckland.

In the study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, infants as young as 13-months-old noticed that speakers did not share a language and did not generalize the rules of one language to another.

“By that age, infants understand that people who speak different languages do not use the same words in the same way,” said Dr. Annette Henderson from the University of Auckland. “This is the first evidence that infants do not indiscriminately generalize words across people.”

The authors explored whether infants understand that word meanings (object labels) are not shared by individuals who speak a different language. To test this, infants from English-speaking families in Auckland were first shown video clips that introduced them to two actors speaking a different language; one actor sang popular French nursery rhymes and the other sang popular English nursery rhymes.

Infants were then repeatedly shown a video clip of a French speaker picking up one out of two objects that infants had not seen before, and giving it a novel label (i.e., “medo”). Since infants look longer at things they find novel, or unexpected, two critical test events were designed to investigate the research question.

In one test event, infants saw the same French speaker pick up the same object and label it “medo”; in another test event, infants saw the French speaker pick up the object that had not previously been labeled and label this “medo”.

In line with previous research, infants looked longer when the French speaker referred to the unlabeled object as “medo”.

“This suggests that infants apply the rules they have learned of their own language and expect speakers of foreign languages to label objects consistently,” said Henderson. “Infants do not expect to hear the French speaker to use the same label for two different objects.”

Notably, when infants were shown critical test events of an English speaker using the same label for the same objects as the French speaker had (i.e., the object previously labeled “medo” and the unlabeled object) there was no significant difference in infants’ looking times towards both objects.

“This finding shows that infants appreciate that words are not shared by speakers of different languages, suggesting that infants have a fairly nuanced understanding of the conventional nature of language,” she said. “People often think that babies absorb language and you don’t have to teach them, (and they do absorb it and they learn very passively), but they’re not just learning willy-nilly, they’re being smart and making distinctions about the words they hear and use.”

The article can be found at: Scott J et al. (2013) Language matters: Thirteen-month-olds understand that the language a speaker uses constrains conventionality.

——

Source: The University of Auckland; Photo: paparutzi/Flickr/CC.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Asian Scientist Magazine is an award-winning science and technology magazine that highlights R&D news stories from Asia to a global audience. The magazine is published by Singapore-headquartered Wildtype Media Group.

Related Stories from Asian Scientist