研究證廣東話小朋友先天音感勁過普通話人

CNN曾將「先天音感」(Tonal talent)譽為香港十大無敵優點之首,原來早有研究發現,用廣東話嘅小朋友音感比普通話嘅更強:「Cantonese-speaking children had more advanced tone awareness than Mandarin-speaking children. This was likely because Cantonese has a more complicated tone system than Mandarin.」

研究人員做咗兩次試驗,用普通話、與廣東話共通字、假字(Pseudo words)辨音做測試。佢地發現,廣東話小朋友無論喺辨認聲調(Tone)、頭子音(Onset)、韻攝(Rime),能力都凌駕普通話小朋友。

睇到廣東話小朋友每樣分數都高過人。

研究人員考慮到呢個Experiment 1係用普通話字做測試,就做咗Experiment 2,用粵普共通字同假字做,都係發現廣東話小朋友得分高啲。

研究人員將結論歸究兩個原因:廣東話小朋友有雙語環境( bilingualism)以及廣東話有更複雜嘅語音系統。

參考: Chen, X., Anderson, R., Li, W., Hao, M., Wu, X., & Shu, H. (2004). Phonological Awareness of Bilingual and Monolingual Chinese Children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(1), 142-151.