How Consonants and Vowels Shape Spoken-Language Recognition

Posted: 20 Feb 2019

See all articles by Thierry Nazzi

Thierry Nazzi

Universite Paris Descartes

Anne Cutler

Western Sydney University

Date Written: January 2019

Abstract

All languages instantiate a consonant/vowel contrast. This contrast has processing consequences at different levels of spoken-language recognition throughout the lifespan. In adulthood, lexical processing is more strongly associated with consonant than with vowel processing; this has been demonstrated across 13 languages from seven language families and in a variety of auditory lexical-level tasks (deciding whether a spoken input is a word, spotting a real word embedded in a minimal context, reconstructing a word minimally altered into a pseudoword, learning new words or the “words” of a made-up language), as well as in written-word tasks involving phonological processing. In infancy, a consonant advantage in word learning and recognition is found to emerge during development in some languages, though possibly not in others, revealing that the stronger lexicon–consonant association found in adulthood is learned. Current research is evaluating the relative contribution of the early acquisition of the acoustic/phonetic and lexical properties of the native language in the emergence of this association.

Suggested Citation

Nazzi, Thierry and Cutler, Anne, How Consonants and Vowels Shape Spoken-Language Recognition (January 2019). Annual Review of Linguistics, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp. 25-47, 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3335695 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011718-011919

Thierry Nazzi (Contact Author)

Universite Paris Descartes ( email )

12, rue de l'Ecole de Médecine
Cedex 06
Paris, 75270
France

Anne Cutler

Western Sydney University ( email )

PO Box 10
Kingswood, NSW 2747
Australia

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