Searching for a new method to study the use of lexicosyntactic and intonational cues in turn projection by Dutch and English children

TitleSearching for a new method to study the use of lexicosyntactic and intonational cues in turn projection by Dutch and English children
Publication TypePresentation
Year of Publication2013
Conference NameDag van de Fonetiek 2013
AuthorsLammertink, Imme, Titia Benders, Marisa Casillas, Brechtje Post, and Paula Fikkert
PublisherNederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen
Conference LocationUtrecht, The Netherlands
Abstract

Children learn language in the context of conversations. Successful coordination and comprehension of conversations relies heavily on the ability to anticipate upcoming speaker changes (turn-transitions). Two linguistic cues that are used to anticipate such turn-transitions are lexicosyntactic and intonational information. This study will address if we can disentangle these two cues in natural dialogues and if so, how Dutch and English toddlers weight these cues in their anticipation of upcoming turn-transitions. Because children receive rich intonational input and are very sensitive to intonation from an early age (Fernald & Thomas, 1984; Moon & Cooper-Panneton, 1993), children may rely more on intonational than on lexicosyntactic cues. This would contrast adult behaviour, as adults seem to rely more on lexicosyntactic cues (de Ruiter et al., 2006). In this talk I will demonstrate the materials that will be used for this study. The current study is the first developmental study that will address the potential different roles of lexicosyntactic and intonational cues in natural dialogues. Previous developmental turn- taking experiments always used materials with flattened intonational contour to get rid of the intonational content or band-pass filtered speech to get rid of lexicosyntactic content. In contrast, our materials consist of dialogues between puppets in which natural speech is used. To control for the linguistic cues, each dialogue includes four different target conditions. These target conditions are manipulated for lexicosyntactic completion (incomplete declarative vs. complete interrogative) and intonational completion (incomplete intonational contour vs. interrogative contour). Possible advantages and disadvantages of this new approach will be discussed. Also, first pilot results of Dutch adults will be presented.