Do music and language help? The influence of musicianship and language background on tonal perception

Thesis

The interaction between musicianship and language background has attracted attention in the academic research field. The OPERA hypothesis suggests that since music processing requires higher neural sensitivity, together with its overlapping neural network with speech processing and the existence of neural plasticity, the music training enhances speech processing. In education and neurolinguistics, there have been numerous investigations providing neural and behavioural evidence on how musical training could significantly improve sensitivity to pitch procession. The co-existence of the concept of pitch in music and language has poses a question about how musical aptitude and language background (specifically focus on whether one’s first language is tonal) influence tonal perception. This study aims to address this question. 167 participants (97 with a tonal L1 and 70 with a non-tonal L1) participated in a musical aptitude test (which included a melody perception and a rhythm perception component) and assessed a tonal discrimination task which included 20 pairs Thai words. The results showed that, for both groups, the participants’ overall musical skills, their rhythmic perception, and their melodic perception in particular had a statistically significant and positive correlation with performance in the tonal discrimination task. These correlations did not present significant difference between tonal and non-tonal L1 groups, indicating that regardless of native (non-)tonal language experience, higher musical aptitudes facilitated tonal perception performance. This echoed the OPERA hypothesis by supporting the music-language effect. The musical aptitudes and (non-)tonal L1 backgrounds were both found as significant predictors of tonal discrimination task scores. When musical aptitudes were controlled as covariate, there was significant difference in tonal discrimination task scores between native tonal and non-tonal speakers. The tonal L1 group scored significantly higher than the non-tonal L1 group. This study had several limitations. The uncontrolled environmental factors, lack of break between tests, and unfamiliar of the tests might undermine participants’ performance on musical aptitudes. The categorisation of participants ignored their proficiencies in languages other than L1, which might influence the investigation of their relationship with tonal perception. For future studies, it is suggested to facilitate participants in test familiarisation, carefully control and measure between-subject and within subject factors if possible. Moreover, since this study only utilised discrimination task for tonal perception measurement, future studies can involve tonal identification task to evaluate the ability of tonal perception more comprehensively.

Authors: Zhang, X

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yeb7q0y9v
• Type of award: MSc taught course
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: ALSLA; ALSLA2024; tonal discrimination task; linear mixed-effect model; musicianship; tonal language; OPERA hypothesis; quantitative research
• Subjects: Applied linguistics; Music; Quantitative research