Can singing facilitate acquisition of second-language morphosyntax in native speakers of Chinese? An artificial language study

Abstract

This chapter examined the effect of sung versus spoken sentences on discovering the rules of an artificial language. First-language Chinese undergraduates heard three blocks of sung or spoken study sentences. Each block was followed by a spoken grammatical judgement test. Song facilitated extracting suffixes, but not learning word-order relations. An observed difference in the learning pattern in the singing and speaking conditions suggests that exposing novice learners of a foreign language to sung and spoken versions of the language could advance learning by taking advantage of the unique contributions of each type of input.