Abstract
The first steps toward bilingual language acquisition have already
begun at birth. When tested on their preference for English versus
Tagalog, newborns whose mothers spoke only English during pregnancy
showed a robust preference for English. In contrast, newborns whose
mothers spoke both English and Tagalog regularly during pregnancy
showed equal preference for both languages. A group of newborns whose
mothers had spoken both Chinese and English showed an intermediate
pattern of preference for Tagalog over English. Preference for two
languages does not suggest confusion between them, however. Study
2 showed that both English monolingual newborns and Tagalog-English
bilingual newborns could discriminate English from Tagalog. The same
perceptual and learning mechanisms that support acquisition in a
monolingual environment thus also naturally support bilingual acquisition.
- (psychology),social
- behavior,female,humans,infant,
- choice
- development,male,multilingualism,pregnancy,psycholinguistics,recognition
- environment,speech
- newborn,language
- perception
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