MUSICAL APTITUDE AND SECOND-LANGUAGE PHONETICS LEARNING: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING METHODOLOGY by Caroline Morgan M.A. University of British Columbia 1992 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of Linguistics O Caroline Morgan 2003 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY December 2003 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL Name: Caroline Morgan Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title of Thesis: Musical aptitude and second language acquisition: Implications for teaching methodology Examining Committee: Chair: Dr. Trude Heift Associate Professor Dr. Zita McRobbie Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Dr. phyflis Wrenn Internal Examiner Associate Professor Dr. knnabel Bhen External Examiner Professor Department of Psychology Prince Edward Island University 3 - \~;SCOI Date Approved: PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENCE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essays: Author: -- - -. L7 ,. G - ,------ -- (Signature) A- ABSTRACT In this thesis I have explored the relationship between musical perception and speech perception as well as that between music production and speech production. I conducted four tests: music perception, speech perception, music production and speech production. The participants were 92 students at Simon Fraser University studying French at beginner and intermediate levels. First they completed a sameldifferent music perception test for tone and rhythm, 40 pairs for tones and 40 pairs for rhythm. Subsequently, the students undertook a speech perception test in which they had to perform a two alternatives forced choice paradigm task for three pairs of vowel contrasts ([ylu, g6, ek]). The third and fourth tests examined both the musical production ability and the speech production ability by means of a musical production test and vowel production test. For the music production test, the students were directed to listen to the first of five pre-selected tones and to reproduce orally what they had heard; the reproduction was recorded. This was repeated for the other four tones. The five pre-selected tones used for male participants were different from those used for female participants. For the vowel production test the students listened to a pre-recorded list of thirty monosyllabic words containing the vowel contrasts studied in the speech perception test; subsequently, each student was recorded while reading this list of words. The advanced groups were also asked to produce an extemporaneous extract, of about thirty seconds duration, describing their morning activities. Two hypotheses were tested in this study. The first assumed that there is a positive correlation between music perception and the perception of the sounds of a second language. The second hypothesis supposed that there is a positive correlation between music production and the pronunciation of sounds of a second language. The results provided evidence of a correlation between music perception (rhythm) and speech perception, between music perception (rhythm) and accent production, between music production and speech perception, and between music production and accent production. Thus it was concluded that both hypotheses received support. The purpose of this study was to learn more about individual differences in the acquisition of the pronunciation of a second language; this could possibly lead to a proposal for a better way to teach a second language. A correlation between music and speech suggests that students with musical aptitude could benefit from an approach that would emphasize listening to speech and music. The students without musical aptitude could be directed towards a more phonetic and more corrective approach. lfiis thesis is dedicated my son Matthew ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all the graduate students and members of the linguistics department, and especially Kyoung-Ja Lee, Jean Wang, Renee McCallum, Cliff Burgess and Geoff Morrison for their moral support, Connie So and Herman Li for their technical as well as moral support, and Susan Morton and Joan Wolfe for their editing. I would also like to offer my appreciation to the teachers and students from the Department of French at Simon Fraser University who participated in my experiments. I would like also to thank my parents for urging me to continue this study, and my husband and son for being so patient. Finally, I would especially wish to express my gratitude to my two supervisors, Dr. Zita McRobbie and Dr. Murray Munro, for their guidance and to Dr. Annabel Cohen and Dr. Phyllis Wrenn for their comments. TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................... . . Approval 1 ..1. .............................................................................................................................. Abstract 111 ............................................................................................................ Acknowledgements v.i . Table of Contents .........................................................................................................v..1.1. . List of Tables .................................................................................................................i.x.. .. List of Figures ................................................................................................................x.. ... ............................................................................. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Objectives of the Research ......................................................................................1.. .. 1.2 Hypotheses ............................................................................................................2.. .... 1.3 Background Research .............................................................................................3.. ... .................................................................................... 1.3.1 Music and Language 3 1.3.2 Music and Language Class ......................................................................... 6 1.3.3 Music Training and Second-Language Acquisition .............................1 3 1.3.4 Musical Aptitude and Second-Language Learning ...................................1. 6 1.3.4.1 Research on Musical Aptitude in Relation to the Teaching of French .................................................................................2..2. ......................................................................... CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 24 2.1 Participants ...........................................................................................................2.5.. .. 2.2 Material ...............................................................................................................2..6.. .. 2.2.1 The Music Perception Test .......................................................................2..6 2.2.2 The Speech Perception Test ....................................................................2..7. 2.2.3 The Music Production Test .....................................................................2.8.. 2.2.4 The Speech Production Test ....................................................................2..9. ................................................................................................................. 2.3 Procedures 30 2.3.1 The Music Perception Test ......................................................................3..0. 2.3.2 The Speech Perception Test ....................................................................3..1. ........................................................................ 2.3.3 The Music Production Test 31 2.3.4 The Speech Production Test ....................................................................3..3. ................................................. CHAPTER THREE: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 36 3.1 Results .......................................................................................................................3 6 3.1.1 Effect of Musical Aptitude on Second-Language Learning. ...................... 36 3.1.2 Effects of Music Training .......................................................................... 37 3.1.3 Perception and Production ......................................................................... 44 ............................................................................................................... 3.2 Discussion 4 4 3.2.1 Musical Aptitude: Nature vs . Nurture ........................................................4 7 3.2.2 Influences on Musical Aptitude ................................................................. 50 vii ................................................................................ 3.2.2.1 Perfect Pitch 50 3.2.2.4 Influence of Language on Musical Aptitude ............................... 50 3.2.3 Differences in Second-Language Learning Aptitude .................................5 1 3.2.3.1 Effect of Immersion Classes on Second-Language Learning ..................................................................................... 53 3.2.3.2 Age of Learning ..........................................................................5 6 3.2.3.3 The Right-Ear Advantage ...........................................................5. 7 3.2.4 Perception and Production ......................................................................5..9. ....................................................................... 3.2.4.1 Perceptual Models 60 3.2.4.2 Perception versus Production ....................................................6 1 ..................................... CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 64 ................................................................................................................. 4.1 conclusion 64 4.2 Implications of Research Results for Second-Language Teaching ........................... 65 4.2.1 Some Recommendations Concerning the Role of Musical Aptitude ................................................................................ in Classroom Practice 66 4.3 Outlook for Future Research .................................................................................6..8.. .......................................................................................... 4.3.1 Music Training 6 8 .................................................................................................. 4.3.2 Languages 6 9 ............................................................................................................ 4.3.3 Age 6 9 4.3.4 Learning Strategies. ................................................................................7..0.. ........................................................................ 4.3.5 More Phonetic Questions 7 0 4.4 Limits of the Study ...............................................................................................7..1.. . ......................................................................................................................... References 73 Appendix A: Consent form ...........................................................................7..8. Appendix B: Questionnaire ............................................................................. 79 Appendix C: Gordon's Intermediate Measure of Music Audiation's answer sheet for children Tone test ...................................................................8..0. Appendix D: Gordon's Intermediate Measure of Music Audiation's answer sheet for children. Rhythm test .................................................................8 1 Appendix E: Music Perception Test ..............................................................8..2 Appendix F: Speech Perception answer sheet ...............................................8..3 Appendix G: List of words for the speech perception and vowel production test .................................................................................................8.4.. . Appendix H: Evaluation sheet for the graduate student for the music production test ...............................................................................................8..5.. . Appendix I: Evaluation sheet for the Native French speakers for the accent production test ...................................................................................................8..6.. Appendix J: Example of the frequencies (Hz) of notes in the fourth octave using the tempered scale .............................................................................................8..7.. Appendix K: Marlung method .......................................................................8..8 Footnotes ........................................................................................................................... 89 ... Vlll LIST OF TABLES Table 1. A comparison of the scores of students with and without music training ....................................................................................................1..4.. . Table 2 . Correlation between music and speech for all groups combined ................. 37 Table 3 Comparison of mean performance scores of students with music training and those without ............................................................................ 40 Table 4. Relation between music and speech .............................................................4 1 Table 5 . Relationship between music and speech for students without musical training .......................................................................................................4 2 Table 6 . Relationship between music and speech for students with music training ...................................................................................................4...2.. Table 7 . Descriptive statistics for immersion classes on Speech ..............................5. 5 Table 8 . Results of the Student's-t-test ......................................................................5. 5