學齡前兒童塞音及聲調知覺與詞彙發展的關係

Assessing Stop and Lexical Tone Perception in Preschool Children and Relationship with Word Development

曹峰銘(Feng-Ming Tsao) ； 李菁芸(Ching-Yun Lee) ； 謝怡欣(Yi-Hsin Hsieh) ； 邱建業(Chien-Yeh Chiu)

《台灣聽力語言學會雜誌》 24期 (2009/12) Pp. 39-57

https://doi.org/10.6143/JSLHAT.2009.12.03

摘要

語音知覺的發展，在嬰兒期經歷相當大的變化。特別是在6~12個月之間，嬰兒對母語語音區辨敏感度隨年紀而增，相反地，對外語的語音敏感度則隨年紀而下降。不過，英語的研究顯示，母語語音區辨敏感度在周歲之後，特別是在5~7歲之間，依然發展。由於各語言語音的差異，英語的研究不一定呈現普世的知覺發展趨勢。而且，語音知覺發展是否與詞彙成長有關？因此，本研究目的一：探索華語5~7歲兒童是否對於塞音及聲調區辨，都出現語音區辨敏感度隨年紀成長的趨勢。此外，本研究目的二：以探索「語音知覺」發展和「詞彙發展」的關係，進而檢視詞彙發展是否為知覺演變的可能發展機制。華語5~7歲兒童(n=47)參與「詞」或「非詞」等不同詞彙狀態音節配對下的AX語音區辨作業，區辨目標包含「塞音構音位置」及聲調「二聲」及「三聲」的差異。並以「畢保德圖畫詞彙測驗(PPVT)」，評估兒童的詞彙發展。結果發現，在塞音及聲調區辨敏感度上，7歲兒童都高於5歲兒童。此外，相較於「非詞」配對，兒童在「詞」配對的情形下，語音區辨敏感度比較高。兒童語音區辨敏感度，與PPVT詞彙理解分數有顯著的相關。回歸分析結果顯示，聲調區辨敏感度比塞音區辨敏感度，更能解釋詞彙能力的變異。這些結果顯示，華語5~7歲兒童的語音敏感度隨年紀增加而提升；而且兒童語音敏感度越高，詞彙理解的發展也越好。本研究的結果除了顯現5~7歲兒童語音區辨敏感度發展，為語言一般性的趨勢，也支持語音知覺與詞彙發展有密切關連的推論。

關鍵字

語音知覺 ； 塞音 ； 聲調 ； 詞彙發展 ； 學齡前兒童

並列摘要

Studies on English-speaking preschool-and school-aged children report a general trend of speech perception development, i.e., the phonetic sensitivity for native language is improving with ages. However, phonetic differences between languages might limit the generalization of this finding. One goal of this study was to examine whether the developmental trend shown in Englishspeaking children would be replicated in Mandarin-speaking children discriminating stops and lexical tones. In addition, this study aimed to assess the relationship between speech perception and word development in childhood. Mandarin-speaking 5-7 year-old children (n=47) participated in an AX phonetic discrimination task. The phonetic contrasts were stop contrast, /p/ vs. /k/, and lexical tone contrast, /tone 2/ vs. /tone 3/, and these phonetic contrasts also differ in lexical status, i.e., word or non-word. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was used to assess children's word comprehension ability. Results show that 7-year-old children perform better stop and lexical tone sensitivities than 5-year-old children, and the lexical status of syllables affects the stop sensitivity in 6-7 year-old children. In addition, the phonetic discrimination performance is positively correlated with the PPVT score, and the regression model shows that the lexical tone sensitivity contributes more than the stop consonant sensitivity in accounting for the variance of PPVT score. These results reveal the improving sensitivity discriminating native stops and lexical tones in Mandarin-speaking 5-7 year-old children, and suggest that speech perception plays an essential role to facilitate word learning in Mandarin-speaking children.

並列關鍵字

Speech perception ； Stop consonant ； Lexical tone ； Word development ； Preschool children

參考文獻

張顯達、許碧勳(2000)。國語輔音聽辨與發音能力之發展研究。中華民國聽力語言學會雜誌。15，1-10。

Tsao, F. M.(2008).The effect of acoustical similarity on lexical-tone perception of one-year-old Mandarin-learning infants.Chinese Journal of Psychology.50,111-124.

Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2007). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 4.6.23): Retrieved September 25, 2007, http://www.praat.org/.

(E-prime (2001). E-prime (Version 1.1). Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools.).

(Sony (2003). Sound Forge (Version 7.0a): Sony.).