The Role of Rhythm and Intonation in Language Acquisition Free Essay Example, 1250 words

An important trait of human language is known as prosody which consists of the musical features of speech such as rhythm, pitch, and intonation. Infants have the ability to differentiate between rhythms since birth. A study concluded that those infants who were 2 to 3 months old could differentiate tones on the basis of the sequence of the rhythms. In order to study the capacity of an infant to process sentences, Mehler et al (1988) conducted an experiment that was based on the method of nonnutritive sucking. This experiment was performed by measuring the number of sucks that the infant produced when he was listening to speech passages. He evaluated that a French infant who was merely 4 days old had the ability to differentiate between French; which was his mother tongue and Russian. Furthermore, these infants could also differentiate between English and Italian, both of which were unfamiliar for the baby (Hesketh, Christophe Lambertz, 1997). Researches have also proved that the sensitivity of an infant the prosodic units and intonations serve as the building block in a Child s language acquisition. We will write a custom essay sample on The Role of Rhythm and Intonation in Language Acquisition or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Another concept of bootstrapping is used to reveal more from one word. A study suggested that infants who are 8 months of age quickly learn to differentiate between flows of syllables based on the sounds which occur more often than others. Babbling is another speech-related phenomenon that usually occurs between 6 to 10 months of age.