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 to investigate whether the language characteristics of Northern Sotho and English 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 English texts by two Sotho children and one English child, aged five to six, was analysed. Qualitative analysis (human judgement) was conducted on the basis of quantitative pitch data (from the computer). This has proved to be an efficient approach in cross-cultural study on children's singing. The results demonstrated differences in children's singing pitch due to the languages of song-texts and linguistic characteristics of their mother tongues. They 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. Furthermore, it was found that there is more fluctuation of pitch when singing in tonal than in non-tonal languages.