VII Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
The connection between musical abilities and language learning
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя II степени
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Introduction
Nowadays the majority part of people wants to learn English language and be fluent in it. Our world changes very fast, communication becomes valuable and inclusive, causing the need of the new skills and knowledge for making a successful career in the future. People don’t really know where to start, so they recurse to the Internet and seek help. There are a lot of different blogs, websites, YouTube channels advising them how to learn language more effectively. For example, the suggest to listen to songs sung in English, memorize irregular verbs from funny poems along with rapping and learning while listening to your favorite songs. Music goes as an aide. But the question is, how effective language learning with the help of music, what is the relationship between music and language?
There’s a theory that music is about more than just entertainment and emotional stimulus. Some evolutionary biologists are rejecting the view that music is just a byproduct of our language evolution. Instead it’s thought to be a critical part of the core functioning of our brains and one that pre-dated our language ability. Does music offer many advantages for learning languages?
The object of research is language learning abilities. The subject of research is the connection between music and language. The aim of the project is the research of connection between musical abilities and language learning.
The objectives are:
- to analyse the scientific articles on linguistics and biology to find the connection between music and language;
- to find out the biological and psychological explanation of the relationship between music and language;
- to examine the connection between accents and language learning process;
- to show the ways how music helps learn languages;
Music making seems to occur, in some form or another, in all human societies. Although musical behavior varies in sophistication, music itself seems to be universal across all human cultures and plays a key part in rituals of all varieties, and the origins of these practices seem very ancient.
Researchers have theorized that the cognitive and social skills that were developed through voice music and dancing may have led to our development of language. Music’s role in our evolution was therefore as a foundation to communication behaviors rather some by-product of it.
Main Part
2.1 Connection between music and language
There are a lot of organizations and scientists who study the connection between music and language, for example George Tsoulas, Lutz Jäncke, Sylvain Moreno, Nina Berger, but they all have found the common in studies and summed them up:
Both are forms of social interaction
Music has traditionally been associated with bringing people together. Whether it’s through a shared emotional experience, appreciation of an art form, or as part of a ceremony or ritual, music is usually a group activity. Language is the same — most people don’t speak to themselves, it takes two or more people to communicate.
Musicians process music as language
Studies have shown the same area of the brain is active with musicians listening to music and listening to language. The area is called the left planum temporal and is generally thought to be where we process language. Interestingly, when non-musicians listen to music, they do not process it in the same area as language. This suggests that while we can all process language in a similar way, it takes practice to process music on a deeper level.
People remember music in the same way as speech
Think about a memorable voice, someone close to you. You tell that voice apart from someone else even if they were saying the same words, right? The same is the case for music. Even without words, we can tell the difference between different people playing the same piece of music. The way our brain processes language and music is more than simply recognizing words or notes, it’s highly complex and uses similar areas of the brain again.
They share the same basic building blocks
Even on a very basic level, music and language are similar in that both are compositional. This means they are made of small parts that combine to create something larger and more meaningful; in other words, their whole is greater than the sum of their parts.
Music — at its most basic level — consists of individual notes. Like words, these aren’t particularly meaningful by themselves: hearing an E flat in isolation likely won’t stir up any serious emotions. But when you combine the E flat with a C and a G, you have a C minor chord: something meaningful has been formed.
Biological explanation
The complete relationship between music and language at the neurological level is still a subject of research and, to some degree, a mystery. However, it’s no mystery that music and language certainly do share some brain space when it comes to how we process sounds. There is strong evidence to suggest that when you listen to a song or to someone speak, your brain is processing those two actions in the same place. See, there’s overlap happening in your brain. This overlap is important because it can open doors for using music as a tool to improve language development.
But why does this overlap happen? Well, some aspects of music and language are structurally similar. Just like notes are strung together to form a song, words are strung together to make a sentence. And if these two things have a similar structure, we can see how they would be sent to the same processing center deep in our brains to elicit a response. So, on a basic level, it makes logical sense that music and language are partly processed in the same part of our brains — I hear a song, I hear my friend speak to me, I hear the TV — all of these sounds translate into some thought or emotion. This idea is called “resource sharing” — that means that music and language are sharing processing power in the brain (Patel 2012).
That translation, the processing of these sounds in the same part of the brain is remarkable because it suggests that listening to music can benefit how you perceive speech. This is especially important in infants and children, whose language centers are constantly developing. Research has suggested that exposing young children to music can drastically improve the way that they interpret speech. This early exposure to music is crucial because it opens those translation centers in the brain and aids in their development (Patel 2012). That means they will be better trained when the time comes to learn to speak, read, and write.
Psychological explanation
In 2011, developmental psychologists from Justus-Liebig University in Germany conducted a study to examine the relationship between the development of music skills and language skills. To do this, they separated preschoolers into two groups, one of which received daily music lessons at school.
Later, they measured the preschoolers’ phonological awareness, which refers to their general ability to use and manipulate language. For example, children with good phonological awareness can recognize when words rhyme, can successfully identify individual sounds within words, and can blend together individual sounds to create words. Early phonological awareness has been shown to be a predictor of enhanced reading skills later in life.
The study found that the children who received daily music lessons ended up with higher levels of phonological awareness than those who did not. This suggests that the development of music skills and language skills go hand in hand, which makes sense if music and language are served by the same underlying brain areas.
As you can see, there are more parallels between language and music than meet the eye! On both a descriptive and neural level, language and music have a lot in common. As language learners, you can take advantage of this relationship by incorporating foreign-language music into your daily language-learning routine. In addition to providing you with great music to listen to, you’ll be exercising the same part of your brain that’s responsible for language skills.
Do musicians make better language learners?
Yes. This has indeed been found. When it comes to learning a foreign language, the music advantage seems to be more restricted to hearing and producing the basic sounds which make up a language. For example, it has been found that among adults or children without music training, those who have more musical talent are also better at perceiving and producing non-native linguistic sounds like Chinese tones. Furthermore, individuals with music training are better at discriminating and learning foreign speech sounds, while they are also better at detecting mistakes in the way foreign speech is pronounced. There is evidence showing that the musician’s brain encodes speech sounds more efficiently and that parts of the brain that are dedicated to sound processing have a different structure in musicians compared to non-musicians. To summarize, people who are good at music are better in learning to perceive and to produce foreign speech sounds.
2.2 Accents and abilities of language learning
Sometimes dismissively, everyone sings with an accent. Accents are slippery things, but essential to our sense of identity, universal, and probably the most easily faked or exaggerated of all our natural features.
Broadly stated, your accent is the way you sound when you speak. There are two different kinds of accents. One is a 'foreign' accent; this occurs when a person speaks one language using some of the rules or sounds of another one. For example, if a person has trouble pronouncing some of the sounds of a second language they're learning, they may substitute similar sounds that occur in their first language. This sounds wrong, or 'foreign', to native speakers of the language.
The other kind of accent is simply the way a group of people speak their native language. This is determined by where they live and what social groups they belong to. People who live in close contact grow to share a way of speaking, or accent, which will differ from the way other groups in other places speak. You may notice that someone has a Texas accent - for example, particularly if you're not from Texas yourself. You notice it because it's different from the way you speak. In reality, everybody has an accent - in somebody else's opinion!
It's amazing how quickly and completely we can spot someone doesn't speak the same way we do. Accents have been used to distinguish one type of person from another since Biblical times. In the Bible, a victorious tribe used the fact that their enemies could not correctly pronounce the word "shibboleth" to identify and kill them. The consequences for mushmouthery have gotten less lethal since then, but accents still mark people out. Different groups of people talk, grunt, exclaim, and even laugh in different ways.
Mick Jagger, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Ed Sheeran, Phil Collins and George Michael all grew up in or near London and have very recognizably British accents. Once on stage, they sing like someone who grew up in New England rather than old. Yet another example is Adele, who has a lovely speaking voice, yet her singing pipes do not indicate her dialect. Going beyond the British, we see the same thing with other non-American musicians, such as the Swedish band ABBA, and many others singing in English, yet from various places around the world. It seems like no matter where you’re from, if you’re singing in English, you’re probably singing with an American accent, unless you’re actively trying to retain your native accent, which some groups do.
There are several reasons we notice accents ‘disappearing’ in song, and why those singing accents seem to default to “American”. In a nutshell, it has a lot to do with phonetics, the pace at which they sing and speak, and the air pressure from one’s vocal chords. As far as why “American” and not some other accent, it’s simply because the generic “American” accent is fairly neutral. Even American singers, if they have a strong “New Yorker” or perhaps a “Hillbilly” accent, will also tend to lose their specific accent, gravitating more towards neutral English, unless they are actively trying not to, as many Country singers might.
For the specific details, we’ll turn to linguist David Crystal from Northern Ireland. According to his studies, a song’s melody cancels out the intonations of speech, followed by the beat of the music cancelling out the rhythm of speech. Once this takes place, singers are forced to stress syllables as they are accented in the music, which forces singers to elongate their vowels. Singers who speak with an accent, but sing it without, aren’t trying to throw their voice to be deceptive or to appeal to a different market; they are simply singing in a way that naturally comes easiest, which happens to be a more neutral way of speaking, which also just so happens to be the core of what many people consider an “American” accent.
Another factor is that the air pressure we use to make sounds is much greater when we sing. Those who sing have to learn to breathe correctly to sustain notes for the right amount of time, and singing requires the air passages to expand and become larger. This changes the quality of the sound. As a result, regional accents can disappear because syllables are stretched out and stresses fall differently than in normal speech. So, once again, this all adds up to singing accents becoming more neutral.
Clearly, researchers are still working on a definitive answer. But people do "lose" their accents through song, and it's not some weird conspiracy. It's just linguistics!
2.3 How music helps learn English
All parents know that a quiet, gentle lullaby can soothe a fussy baby. As adults, a magnificent symphony can make us swell with excitement. But music also can affect the way we learn. Music is one of the few activities that involves using the whole brain. It is inherent in all cultures and can have surprising benefits not only for acquiring language, improving memory and focusing attention, but also for physical coordination and development. Music encourages learning and enhances communication. In recent years, we’ve learned a lot about how the brain develops. Babies are born with billions of brain cells. During the first years of life, those brain cells form connections with other brain cells. Over time, the connections we use regularly become stronger. Children who grow up listening to music develop strong music-related connections that in turn strengthen their language skills.
Music plays a very important part in learning both our native language, as well as additional ones. As children, we can imitate the rhythm and musical structure of our mother tongue long before we can say the words. Most of us are able to remember several songs and nursery rhymes we learned as children. Music helps us retain words and expressions much more effectively. The rhythm of the music, as well as the repetitive patterns within the song, help us memorize words. Bilingual children, in particular, can benefit from singing songs in their second language. Even if most of the words are unfamiliar at first, mimicking the words in a song can help children practice producing sounds in the new language. Eventually the sounds give way to actual understanding as the song is practiced over and over again.
Exceptional musical ability is common among multilingual individuals. Likewise, musical people have increased aptitude in foreign language learning due to their superior ability to perceive, process, and reproduce accent. Understanding how music can help with language learning is important, as when listening to music, following the lyrics and melody and/or rhythm requires both sides of our brains to be active, making it easier to remember information that’s simply read.
Whether you’re playing soft melodies for your infant or teaching your young child how to play an instrument, including music as a part of your child’s education could be an important part of encouraging literacy and comprehension. Since studies have shown that the areas of the brain responsible for understanding music and language are so closely connected, there are multiple benefits to getting children started early on a life filled with music. It may be just as important as the words they read and write.
But how can people without musical abilities learn language?
It may be harder for them, but not impossible. There is this man called Benny Lewis. He speaks fluently in five languages: French, Spanish, English, German, Brazilian, Portuguese and Esperanto. Benny invented some methods for quick language learning and even wrote a book called “Fluent in 3 months”. He called his methods “Language Hacking”. I will show you some of them.
Language Hacking Method
LanguageHacking is a completely different approach to language learning. It’s not something only ‘other people’ can do. It’s simply about being smart with how you learn: learning what’s indispensable and skipping what’s not. There’s no need to learn every word and grammar rule before you start using the language. Instead, #LanguageHacking gives you the most versatile phrases and most effective shortcuts to help you get fluent faster.
LanguageHacking isn’t just a course. It’s a new way of thinking about language learning and how people communicate today. With the bespoke online language hacking community, you really can start speaking from day one!
Steps:
Speak in the language out loud from the very first day of your learning.
You shouldn’t be afraid of wrong pronunciation or the structure of your sentences? You’re just learning.
Learn useful phrases first
For example, “Where is the bathroom?” or “How can I get there?”. Not eloquent but still very helpful.
Talk about yourself
Benny likes to give his students a task: write a short story about yourself in a language you study and read it to everyone. It may help you to remember a lot of basic words and constructions and also it will remove the fear of speaking out loud.
Benny himself had many struggles with learning for years. But after taking an expensive classes and countless trips he sat down and understood, that to speak a language, you've just got to start speaking it. There's no magic. You only need a willingness to make mistakes. Learning languages has given him confidence in conversations, new friends and insight into other cultures. It's opened up new worlds for him. Benny set up the polyglot community so others can have the same experience.
So, if you have no talent or nature abilities for learning other languages, you may follow Benny’s advices and give yourself over completely to studying.
Conclusion
To sum up, music offers many advantages for learning languages. Scientists have shown that listening to a song and humming along can help with language learning.
When singing, we try to reproduce sounds and tone, so our accent is less pronounced than when we speak.
Listening to music allows us to better assimilate the syntax and enrich our vocabulary because the lyrics of the songs are generally composed of informal expressions and words that we don’t necessarily learn when studying a language.
Listening to music helps with memorisation. According to scientists, singing new words makes them easier to remember. Do you remember how you learned the alphabet when you were a child?
Not only adults, but also infants and children can benefit from the advantages linked to listening to a foreign language. Scientific research suggests that infants who listen to multiple languages as they grow will have better linguistic sensitivity in these languages in later life.
And if you have no predisposition to learning language quickly, try to follow learning programs of a famous polyglots and you have all chances to speak fluent.
REFERENCES
https://www.mempowered.com/strategies/music/music-and-language
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