Congratulations to our PhD student, Summer Wang, on successfully passing her PhD examination!

Summer’s dissertation, titled “Effects of Musical Aptitude, Language Background, and Musical Training on L2 Tonal Word Learning: Evidence from Cross-situational Learning,” examines how adults learn words in a new tonal language under immersion-like conditions. Across three studies, she investigated how learners use pitch and syllable duration to acquire unfamiliar Mandarin-inspired word forms through cross-situational exposure, without explicit teaching or feedback.

The thesis shows that tonal word learning is shaped by musical aptitude, first-language background, and musical training. In particular, melodic perception was associated with learning pitch-based contrasts, English- and Mandarin-speaking learners weighted pitch and duration differently, and the effects of musical training were largely indirect, operating through musical aptitude rather than producing a general learning advantage.

Summer was jointly supervised by Professor Patrick Rebuschat and Professor Padraic Monaghan, co-directors of the Lancaster Language Learning Lab.

Summer’s thesis was examined by Jelena Mirkovic from York St John University and Vittorio Tantucci from Lancaster University. We are very grateful to both examiners for their careful assessment of the thesis and for their constructive and thoughtful feedback.

Many congratulations, Summer!