Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production

This study addressed the debate on the primacy of syllable vs. segment (i.e., phoneme) as a functional unit of phonological encoding in syllabic languages by investigating both behavioral and neural responses of Dutch-Cantonese (DC) bilinguals in a color-object picture naming task. Specifically, we...

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Main Authors: Kalinka Timmer, Yiya Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-07-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01133/full
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spelling doaj-73fd6c7d6bbc40cba5d12cffd999a87f2020-11-24T23:33:59ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782017-07-01810.3389/fpsyg.2017.01133235942Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language ProductionKalinka Timmer0Kalinka Timmer1Yiya Chen2Yiya Chen3Center for Brain and Cognition, Pompeu Fabra UniversityBarcelona, SpainLeiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden UniversityLeiden, NetherlandsLeiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden UniversityLeiden, NetherlandsLeiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden UniversityLeiden, NetherlandsThis study addressed the debate on the primacy of syllable vs. segment (i.e., phoneme) as a functional unit of phonological encoding in syllabic languages by investigating both behavioral and neural responses of Dutch-Cantonese (DC) bilinguals in a color-object picture naming task. Specifically, we investigated whether DC bilinguals exhibit the phonemic processing strategy, evident in monolingual Dutch speakers, during planning of their Cantonese speech production. Participants named the color of colored line-drawings in Cantonese faster when color and object matched in the first segment than when they were mismatched (e.g., 藍駱駝, /laam4/ /lok3to4/, “blue camel;” 紅饑駝, /hung4/ /lok3to4/, “red camel”). This is in contrast to previous studies in Sinitic languages that did not reveal such phoneme-only facilitation. Phonemic overlap also modulated the event-related potentials (ERPs) in the 125–175, 200–300, and 300–400 ms time windows, suggesting earlier ERP modulations than in previous studies with monolingual Sinitic speakers or unbalanced Sinitic-Germanic bilinguals. Conjointly, our results suggest that, while the syllable may be considered the primary unit of phonological encoding in Sinitic languages, the phoneme can serve as the primary unit of phonological encoding, both behaviorally and neurally, for DC bilinguals. The presence/absence of a segment onset effect in Sinitic languages may be related to the proficiency in the Germanic language of bilinguals.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01133/fullspeech productionbilingualismsegmental processingsyllabic processingEEG/ERP
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Kalinka Timmer
Kalinka Timmer
Yiya Chen
Yiya Chen
spellingShingle Kalinka Timmer
Kalinka Timmer
Yiya Chen
Yiya Chen
Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production
Frontiers in Psychology
speech production
bilingualism
segmental processing
syllabic processing
EEG/ERP
author_facet Kalinka Timmer
Kalinka Timmer
Yiya Chen
Yiya Chen
author_sort Kalinka Timmer
title Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production
title_short Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production
title_full Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production
title_fullStr Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production
title_full_unstemmed Dutch-Cantonese Bilinguals Show Segmental Processing during Sinitic Language Production
title_sort dutch-cantonese bilinguals show segmental processing during sinitic language production
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
series Frontiers in Psychology
issn 1664-1078
publishDate 2017-07-01
description This study addressed the debate on the primacy of syllable vs. segment (i.e., phoneme) as a functional unit of phonological encoding in syllabic languages by investigating both behavioral and neural responses of Dutch-Cantonese (DC) bilinguals in a color-object picture naming task. Specifically, we investigated whether DC bilinguals exhibit the phonemic processing strategy, evident in monolingual Dutch speakers, during planning of their Cantonese speech production. Participants named the color of colored line-drawings in Cantonese faster when color and object matched in the first segment than when they were mismatched (e.g., 藍駱駝, /laam4/ /lok3to4/, “blue camel;” 紅饑駝, /hung4/ /lok3to4/, “red camel”). This is in contrast to previous studies in Sinitic languages that did not reveal such phoneme-only facilitation. Phonemic overlap also modulated the event-related potentials (ERPs) in the 125–175, 200–300, and 300–400 ms time windows, suggesting earlier ERP modulations than in previous studies with monolingual Sinitic speakers or unbalanced Sinitic-Germanic bilinguals. Conjointly, our results suggest that, while the syllable may be considered the primary unit of phonological encoding in Sinitic languages, the phoneme can serve as the primary unit of phonological encoding, both behaviorally and neurally, for DC bilinguals. The presence/absence of a segment onset effect in Sinitic languages may be related to the proficiency in the Germanic language of bilinguals.
topic speech production
bilingualism
segmental processing
syllabic processing
EEG/ERP
url http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01133/full
work_keys_str_mv AT kalinkatimmer dutchcantonesebilingualsshowsegmentalprocessingduringsiniticlanguageproduction
AT kalinkatimmer dutchcantonesebilingualsshowsegmentalprocessingduringsiniticlanguageproduction
AT yiyachen dutchcantonesebilingualsshowsegmentalprocessingduringsiniticlanguageproduction
AT yiyachen dutchcantonesebilingualsshowsegmentalprocessingduringsiniticlanguageproduction
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