SIR World Languages Investigation Abstract
THE EFFECTS OF MUSICAL TRAINING ON TONE LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE
Presenter:
Sriniwasan (Balaji) B. Mani, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, 1500 West Sullivan Road, Aurora, IL 60506
Advisor:
Dr. Patrick Wong, Northwestern University; Evanston, IL
Abstract:
This study focused on the effects of music experience of a non-tone language speaker (e.g. English speakers) on his or her abilities in perceiving pitch embedded in Mandarin words. Native speakers of Mandarin, a tone language, convey meaning through four specific pitch patterns (called “lexical tones”); hence, a syllable can potentially have four meanings. For example, the syllable “ma” can be spoken in a level, rising, dipping, or falling pitch pattern to indicate mother, hemp, horse, and the verb to scold, respectively. It was investigated whether well-trained English-speaking musicians were better at identifying and discriminating Mandarin tones than non-musicians. Mandarin speakers were used as control subjects. The identification task prompted the test subject to indicate the specific tone of a Mandarin word. A discrimination task required the subject to indicate if pairs of stimuli contained the same tone. It was found that musicians significantly outperformed non-musicians on all tasks. It is probable that the musician group used musical knowledge and experience to identify with the linguistically meaningful pitch patterns of Mandarin tones.