Effects of language characteristics on children's singing pitch: Some observations on Sotho and English-speaking children's singing

The present study views the language characteristics of tonal and non-tonal languages as a cultural factor affecting children's singing. The aim was t o investigate whether the language characteristics of Northern Sotho and En glish song-texts have any effects on children's singing pitch, and whether there are any cultural differences between the Sotho- and English-speaking children's singing pitch. The singing of a song in Northern-Sotho and Engli sh texts by two Sotho children and one English child, aged five to six, was analysed. Qualitative analysis (human judgement) was conducted on the basi s of quantitative pitch data (from the computer). This has proved to be an efficient approach in cross-cultural study on children's singing. The resul ts demonstrated differences in children's singing pitch due to the language s of song-texts and linguistic characteristics of their mother tongues. The y supported some past findings on Cantonese-speaking children(Chen-Hafteck, 1996; 1997): singing in such tonal languages is more detached, can help in singing wide intervals, and articulation of linguistic tones is present. F urthermore, it was found that there is more fluctuation of pitch when singi ng in tonal than in non-tonal languages.