The Roots of Bilingualism in Newborns
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Abstract
The first steps toward bilingual language acquisition have already begun at birth. When tested on their preference for English versus Tagalog, newborns whose mothers spoke only English during pregnancy showed a robust preference for English. In contrast, newborns whose mothers spoke both English and Tagalog regularly during pregnancy showed equal preference for both languages. A group of newborns whose mothers had spoken both Chinese and English showed an intermediate pattern of preference for Tagalog over English. Preference for two languages does not suggest confusion between them, however. Study 2 showed that both English monolingual newborns and Tagalog-English bilingual newborns could discriminate English from Tagalog. The same perceptual and learning mechanisms that support acquisition in a monolingual environment thus also naturally support bilingual acquisition.
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Bilingual infants can differentiate between their two languages essentially from birth.
“Thus, it is not surprising that bilingual infants can differentiate between their two languages essentially from birth [132].”
From Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain (2012) · cites this paper as [132]
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Poremba, A., Bigelow, J., & Rossi, B. (2013) · Hearing Research · doi:10.1016/j.heares.2013.06.005 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Early Prosodic Acquisition in Bilingual Infants: The Case of the Perceptual Trochaic Bias
Bijeljac-Babic, R., Höhle, B., & Thierry Nazzi, A. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00210 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Melody complexity of infants’ cry and non-cry vocalisations increases across the first six months
Wermke, K., Robb, M. P., & Schlüter, P. J. (2021) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-83564-8 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Serratrice, L. (2012) · doi:10.1002/9781118332382.ch4 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
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The What and When of Universal Perception: A Review of Early Speech Sound Acquisition
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- Authors
- Byers-Heinlein, K., Burns, T. C., & Werker, J. F.
- Affiliations
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
- Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Economiques (FR)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- ORCID
- Werker, Janet F.
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-01-29
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 343-348
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2128446822
- Cited by
- 404
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 50 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 56 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 36.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Spectrum Research Repository (Concordia University) (acceptedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- James S. McDonnell Foundation
- University of British Columbia
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Luonnontieteiden ja Tekniikan Tutkimuksen Toimikunta
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Keywords
- bilingualism, neonates, language preference, prenatal language exposure, language discrimination, Tagalog, English language, Chinese-English bilingualism, language acquisition, maternal speech
- MeSH terms
- Choice Behavior, Female, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Language Development, Male, Pregnancy, Psycholinguistics, Social Environment, Speech Perception, Multilingualism, Recognition, Psychology
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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