Melodies in Motherese in Tonal and Nontonal Languages: Mandarin Chinese, Caucasian American, and German.

Autor/in	Papousek, Mechthild
Institution	National Inst. of Child Health and Human Development (NIH), Bethesda, MD.; Max-Planck-Inst. for Psychological Research, Munich (West Germany).
Titel	Melodies in Motherese in Tonal and Nontonal Languages: Mandarin Chinese, Caucasian American, and German.
Quelle	(1987), (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Biological Influences; Cross Cultural Studies; English; German; Infants; Language Patterns; Language Universals; Mandarin Chinese; Melody; Parent Child Relationship; Parents; Tone Languages; Verbal Communication; Whites + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Biologischer Faktor; Cultural comparison; Kulturvergleich; English language; Englisch; Deutscher; Infant; Toddler; Toddlers; Kleinkind; Sprachmodell; Sprachstruktur; Parents-child relationship; Parent-child-relation; Parent-child relationship; Eltern-Kind-Beziehung; Eltern; Tonsprache; White; Weißer
Abstract	In a comparison of the melodies in the speech of Mandarin Chinese and Caucasian American mothers, striking similarities were found: (1) in the overall distribution and average structure of melodic contours; (2) in close contextual links to given forms of intuitive parental care; and (3) in a tendency to neglect lexical tones in favor of pitch modulation. These findings strongly support the notion of a cross-cultural universality of maternal melodies, and indicate a primary biological determination. At the same time, significant differences were found with regard to the extent of speech adjustments. Chinese mothers raised their overall pitch less and expanded pitch excursions less than did American mothers. This finding reflects certain constraints on pitch modulation which may be explained linguistically and culturally. Chinese mothers compensated for such constraints through a high proportion of unconstrained modeling sounds. (PCB)
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC