LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 8 August 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Are Tonal and Non-Tonal Languages Lateralized Differently in Bilingual Tonal Language Speakers?

Sudeshna Goswami, Intern (B.Sc. Speech & Hearing)
Suma Raju, MASLP

Abstract

Introduction

All languages use intonation to express emphasis, emotions but not every language uses tone to distinguish meaning. When this occurs, tones are equally important, as phonemes and they are referred to as “tonemes”. Languages that make use of tonemes are called as “tonal languages”. Research indicates varied results for the laterality effect using tonal stimuli compared to consistent right ear advantage (REA) for the non-tonal verbal stimuli. These findings cannot be generalized to tonal languages which are spoken in India which varies in many aspects compared to other tonal languages studied, hence an attempt has been done to study the laterality effects for Indian tonal language (Manipuri).

Aim

To investigate the lateralization of tonal and non-tonal languages in bilingual tonal language speakers using dichotic listening task.

Method

Test materials

72 English and 96 Manipuri words served as stimuli. Dichotic stimulus was prepared using adobe audition software version-3. A total of 4Manipuri dichotic tracks (first track was for practice) and 3 English tracks were prepared where each track had 12 pairs of monosyllabic words.

Procedure

30 female subjects with mean age of 25 years participated in the study with normal speech-language and hearing ability with right handedness.Two tasks were carried out dichotic listening and free recall task of auditory capacity. The number of correct responses was scored and percentage was calculated.

Results

The scores obtained were subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS version10 software. Multiple paired sample’t’ test was used to compare mean scores of both the ears for English and Manipuri languages. Results of’t’ test in dichotic task showed that there was a significant difference between the scores of right and left ears for English with p value0.02 (p<0.05), but for the Manipuri language this difference was not appreciated with a significance value0.495 (p<0.05).The results for the free recall task clearly indicated high scores for stimuli presented through right ear (p=0.000)for English and in Manipuri there was no significant difference obtained for scores between both ears(p=0.604).

Conclusion

Results of the present study clearly indicated REA for English and no specific ear advantage for Manipuri in both dichotic and free recall tasks. Findings support that language processing in left hemisphere especially for non-tonal languages. Equal scores for both ears for tonal language(Manipuri) can be attributed to participation of both hemispheres in processing tonal stimuli, which can be contributed to the participation of right hemisphere for processing the tonal aspects (contrast variations in pitch, durations and stress) of the language.

Key Words: Right ear advantage, dichotic listening task, auditory capacity.

This is only the abstract part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Sudeshna Goswami, Intern (B.Sc. Speech & Hearing)
JSS Institute of Speech and Hearing
Mysore-570025
Karnataka
India
goswamineha9348@gmail.com

Suma Raju, MASLP
JSS Institute of Speech and Hearing
Mysore-570025
Karnataka
India
sumaraju.mys@gmail.com
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