The present study reports on a developmental and cross-linguistic study of oral narratives produced by speakers of Zulu (a Bantu language) and French (a Romance language). Specifically, we focus on oral narrative performance as a bimodal (i.e., linguistic and gestural) behaviour during the late language acquisition phase. We analyzed seventy-two…

Purpose: In typical interactions with other speakers, including a clinical environment, listeners become familiar with voices through implicit learning. Previous studies have found evidence for a Familiar Talker Advantage (better speech perception and spoken language processing for familiar voices) following explicit voice learning. The current…

Background: This study examined the development of stress sensitivity and its relationship with word reading. Previous research has rarely measured phoneme and stress sensitivity in the same task, making a direct comparison of the contribution between the two in reading development difficult. Methods: Participants were native English-speaking…

In the present day Mandarin Chinese has become a commonly taught language in the U.S. Mandarin is widely taught in colleges and universities; K-12 Chinese programs, including immersion programs, have also grown rapidly. However, to date little research has been conducted on the latter programs. This study examines immersion programs in elementary…

In order to investigate relationships between spoken and written language knowledge at a phonological level, linguistic theories of syllable structure that treat initial consonant clusters as units are first discussed. Second, experimental evidence is presented suggesting that analysis of initial clusters is difficult for both children and adults…

Using a corpus of 18 child-adult conversations, this study distinguished adult utterances that solicited information from those soliciting acknowledgment (i.e., where the response was predictable, and the utterance served a predominantly social function). Both types of utterance were usually responded to by children, but the form of response…

Examines children's uses of nominal determiners ("local markings") and utterance structure ("global markings") to introduce new referents through the use of narratives elicited from preschoolers, elementary school students and adults in English, French, German and Mandarin Chinese. Findings reveal that local markings emerge first, and local and…