双语阅读：婴儿哭声藏玄机 声调不同因在母语.docVIP

双语阅读：婴儿哭声藏玄机 声调不同因在母语 http://edu.QQ.com　 2009年11月09日09:26 　?英语点津　　 我要评论(0)　 Does your baby cry in French or German? An image of a crying baby. According to scientists, babies cry in the language their parents speak from the first days of life. The wail of a newborn may sound the same to the ears of sleep-deprived parents the world over, but according to scientists, thats not the case: Babies cry in the language their parents speak from the first days of life. An international team of researchers said a study of 60 newborns suggested babies start to learn language in the womb, long before they utter their first?coosor?babbles-- and their wails can be distinguished according to the?mother tongue. French newborns tend to cry with a rising melody?contour, while their German neighbors prefer a falling melody shape -- patterns which the researchers said fit with characteristic differences between the two languages. Kathleen Wermke of the University of Wuerzburg in Germany, who conducted the study with French and American colleagues, said it showed newborns are capable of producing different cry melodies and that they prefer melodies in the pattern of the language they heard in the womb. Wermkes team recorded the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. Their analysis, published in journal Current Biology, revealed clear differences in the shape of the newborns’ cry melodies, based on their mother tongue. Previous studies have shown that human?fetusescan memorize sounds from the external world by the last three months of pregnancy and are particularly attuned to melodies in both music and language. Vocal imitation studies have also shown babies can match?vowel soundsspoken by adults, but only from 12 weeks old. Wermkes team said their research showed an extremely early impact of native language and confirmed that babies cries are their first proper attempts to commu