A Study Of Temporal Aspects Of Consonants In Southern Mandarin Young Children’s Early Speech

As one of the distinctive features of language, temporal aspects have been studiedboth at home and abroad, but studies on Mandarin Chinese are few. The present study,which is a longitudinal research of two Southern Mandarin children (a girl and a boy)aged0;9-2;3, aims to explore the temporal aspects of their consonants. The purpose ofthis study is to provide a systematic phonetic research on the early speech developmentof Southern Mandarin children, and to examine Jakobson’s Discontinuity postulations onlanguage development (1941/1968) and Boysson-Bardies et al.’ Hypothesis of EarlyInteraction (1989) so as to help people get a deeper understanding of the process ofchildren’s phonetic acquisition. Specifically, this paper addresses the following threequestions:1. Do Southern Mandarin children’s consonantal intervals decrease with increasingage? What is their temporal variability?2. Is gender a factor that affects children’s consonantal intervals?3. What is the difference of the two children’s consonantal intervals by manner ofarticulation?The subjects of this longitudinal research are two Mandarin young children inChangsha aged0;9-2;3. Both of them are the only-child in their families, with nocognitive, hearing and speaking problems. Southern Mandarin is their daily language.They were audio-(SONY ICD-SX35) and video-taped (SONY HDR-HC1) at theirhomes every week respectively, and each recording lasted about40-60minutes. All thedata got recorded under natural circumstances by the postgraduate students, the parentswere in natural communication with the two children.The data used in this study were836consonants, extracted from76sessions. For acomparison, we also analyzed300consonants from the two children’s parents, orexactly the girl’s father and the boy’s mother. There were six age stages:0;9-0;11,1;0-1;2,1;3-1;5,1;6-1;8,1;9-1;11,2;0-2;3. The data were transcribed in narrow IPA,and babble was coded from0;9-0;11, and word stage was coded from1;0-2;3. Aftertransferring the recordings into PC, they were firstly segmented into words by Cool EditPro.(Version2.1), and textgrided by Praat (Version5.1.37). Then by using a script, theabsolute intervals were obtained. The transcription was completed by a professionalresearcher majoring in this field, and checked by two other professional researchersmajored in Mandarin Chinese phonetics, the intra-reliability was97.65%and theinter-reliability was91.02%. The major findings are:1) The changing trend of consonantal intervals and temporal variability.The two children’s consonantal intervals and temporal variability are progressivelydecreasing with their increasing age, and the decreases in intervals and temporal variabilityare greater when children are younger and smaller as they become older. However, thedecreases of the two aspects are not consistent, and usually they show uncommon changingtrends. In addition, the consonantal intervals at the girl’s babbling stage and word stage arenot significantly different, but that of the boy’s are significant, thus we are suspicious of theDiscontinuity Theory. Via the comparison with their parents, it is found that the decrease ofmean intervals and variability shows a tropism to their parents.2) The influence of gender on the consonantal intervals of the two infants.For most of the time, the girl’s mean intervals are relatively longer than the boy’s.Based on a comparison of their consonantal intervals across the six age stages, it isfound that at0;9-1;5, most of the girl’s intervals are longer; at1;6-1;9, the boy’sintervals begin to lengthen; and at2;0-2;3, some of the boy’s intervals are even longerthan the girl’s. Based on a comparison of the parents, it is also found that theconsonantal intervals of the girl’s father are much longer than those of the boy’s mother.Thus, it confirms the ambient influence of the parents on the changes of the children’sconsonantal intervals.3) The difference of consonantal intervals by manner of articulation.By manner of articulation, the two children show an interval difference as:unaspirated stops <fricatives <aspirated stops <sonorants. This is quite similar to theresults of the previous researches on adults, the only difference lies in that their adults’sonorants have the shortest intervals, but the children’s sonorants in this study have thelongest intervals. By the comparison with the two children’s parents, it is found that theyhave the similar interval difference as their children. Thus, it also lends support to theHypothesis of Early Interaction.Through this longitudinal research, we have found some temporal characteristics ofSouthern Mandarin children’s speech development, and the results lead to our suspiciousof the Discontinuity Theory. By comparing the two children’s parents, we also confirmtheir influence on the temporal aspects of the two children, which gives a strong supportto the Hypothesis of Early Interaction.