Effects of linguistic experience on the perception of musical rhythm : Finnish late learners of English

Abstract

Previous research has found that mastering multiple languages with different rhythmic properties enhances the perception of musical rhythm. This study investigates whether learning a second language that shares a word-level stress preference with the first language but diverges on the speech unit level rhythm could lead to an enhancement in the perception of musical rhythm. In the study, 15 Finnish late learners of English and 16 English monolingual speakers were tested on their perception of musical rhythm using the rhythm subset of the Musical Ear Test (MET). Additionally, the study investigates whether the different use of pitch between two non-tone languages affects the perception of musical melody and the ability to discriminate lexical tones. These were tested using the melody subset of the MET and a Chinese Tone Discrimination Task. Participants’ phonological and working memory capacities, musical perceptual abilities, and musical training were assessed to control for individual differences. The findings suggest that mastering languages that only differ on the unit level rhythm may not be enough to enhance the perception of musical rhythm. The results also suggest that using pitch for grammatical functions enhances the perception of musical melody, but not that of lexical tones, in first language speakers and that acquiring the ability to detect small changes in pitch is challenging even for highly proficient second language learners. Contrary to earlier studies, the findings suggest that pitch in language and music are processed independently even in speakers of non-tone languages, and also that processing pitch in grammatical intonation is independent from the processing of musical pitch. The study raises questions about the influence of first language on rhythm and pitch perception both in speech and music.