Tapping into linguistic rhythm. Issue 1 (28th May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rathcke, Tamara; Lin, Chia-Yuan; Falk, Simone; Dalla Bella, Simone
• Is Part Of: Laboratory phonology. Volume 12:Issue 1(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-05-28
• Subjects: Speech rhythm -- sensorimotor synchronization -- motor reproduction -- vowel onset -- p-centre; Grammar, Comparative and general -- Phonology -- Periodicals; Phonetics -- Periodicals; Psycholinguistics -- Periodicals; Linguistic change -- Periodicals; 415.05
• DOI: 10.5334/labphon.248
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1868-6346

Abstract

Abstract : Rhythmic properties of speech and language have been a matter of long-standing debates, with both traditional production and perception studies delivering controversial findings. The present study examines the possibility of investigating linguistic rhythm using movement-based paradigms. Informed by the theory and methods of sensorimotor synchronization, we developed two finger-tapping tasks (synchronization and reproduction), and tested them with English participants. The synchronization task required participants to tap along with the beat of a looped sentence while the reproduction task asked them to tap out the perceived beat patterns after listening to a sentence loop. The results showed that both tasks engaged participants in period tracking of a beat-like structure in the linguistic stimuli, though synchronization did so to a greater extent. Patterns obtained in the reproduction task tended to converge toward participants' spontaneous tapping rates and showed a degree of regularization. Data collected in the synchronization task displayed a consistent anchoring of taps with the vowel onsets. Overall, synchronization performance with language resembled many well-established findings of sensorimotor synchronization with metronome and music. We conclude that our setting of the sensorimotor synchronization paradigm—finger tapping along with looped spoken phrases—is a valid experimentation tool for studying rhythm perception in language.