The Production of Contrastive Focus by Children Learning Mandarin Chinese

Contrastive focus highlights the important information in discourse, syllables carrying which typically demonstrate longer duration and larger pitch range. This study examined whether and when Mandarin-learning preschoolers (4-6 years) were able to use duration and pitch to express contrastive focus, and when their productions become adult-like. Participants included 104 4-6-year-old preschoolers (38 4-year-olds, 335-year-olds, and 336-year-olds) and 20 adult speakers (as controls) of Mandarin Chinese. Stimuli included ”color + animal” NPs (e.g., red cat), where the color adjective either carried a contrastive focus (focus condition) or not (non-focus condition). Speech productions were elicited using the question-answer paradigm. The results of perceptual judgment suggested that all child groups could not produce contrastive focus as accurately as adults, and there was no correlation between the production accuracy and children’s age. Acoustic analysis of the (perceptually) correct productions revealed that all child groups used adult-like pitch and durational cues to express contrastive focus, while children’s focus productions were not fully acquired, with no comparable adult-like post-focus compression in both cues. Therefore, the acquisition of contrastive focus in Mandarin Chinese is a gradual process, with 4-6 years being able to use both pitch and duration to mark focus, while their productions were not adult-like before 6 years.