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第2291期:How we learn accents before we learn words

第2291期:How we learn accents before we learn words

Episode 288 Published 1 year, 7 months ago
Description

No! That's the only word we hear in the latest cute baby video to go viral. But it's not the words that baby Orla says that has made this video so popular. It's the fact that her babbling clearly mimics the distinctive Scouse accent from Liverpool. 

不! 这是我们在最新的可爱婴儿视频中听到的唯一一句话。 但并不是小奥拉说的话让这段视频如此受欢迎。 事实上,她的胡言乱语显然模仿了利物浦独特的苏格兰口音。 


This now-famous infant may only have been born in 2022, but the different accents of babbling babies have been investigated for many years. A study from 2009 found that French babies tend to cry with a rising intonation, while German babies' cries often have a falling intonation. Other studies have shown American and French babies reflecting syllables from English and French respectively, and that babies with parents who speak a tonal language, like Mandarin, had a greater range of tones in their crying.

这个现在著名的婴儿可能才出生于 2022 年,但牙牙学语婴儿的不同口音已经被研究了很多年。 2009年的一项研究发现,法国婴儿的哭声往往是升调,而德国婴儿的哭声往往是降调。 其他研究表明,美国和法国的婴儿分别反映了英语和法语的音节,而父母说普通话等声调语言的婴儿在哭泣时的声调范围更大。


So why does this happen? As children develop, they practise making the sounds of the language that they hear around them. It's natural that they pick up the sounds and rhythms that surround them. In fact, babies start to learn language from their mother from three months before birth. However, it's not just the language of immediate family and caregivers that has an impact. Professor of 

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