Doctoral Dissertation Research: The integration of visual and auditory information in tone perception

博士论文研究：音调感知中视觉和听觉信息的整合

• 批准号: 1524488
• 负责人: Natasha Warner
• 金额: $ 1.39万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1524488&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; integration; visual

Languages vary in how they use the pitch of voice to convey meaning. In a tone language, pitch is used to differentiate word meanings. For example, in Mandarin Chinese, the syllable ma said with a steady high tone means 'mother', but said with a falling tone it means 'to scold'. Tone languages represent 60%-70% of the world's 6,000 languages; about 20% of them have tones that sound very similar to each other and are difficult for non-native speakers to distinguish. More and more people around the world are learning tone languages because of globalization, international business, migration, and cross-cultural communications. In the United States, the number of college students studying Chinese alone was over 61,000 as of 2013, and the number is likely to surpass 134,000 by 2050. As the economy of the United States has become increasingly international, the demand for foreign language proficiency is stronger and stronger, and many less commonly taught tone languages such as Vietnamese and Thai have attracted a large number of learners. However, learning a tone language is challenging. Research has shown that, in general, people have difficulties distinguishing and pronouncing tones in a foreign language and that this hinders cross-cultural communication, as miscommunication arises due to mispronunciation. Thus, better learning of tone languages would help the American business community in trade with China and other areas where tone languages are spoken.The focus of this project is the process for learning tones in Cantonese, a language with tones that are difficult for non-native speakers to distinguish. Specifically, this project aims to investigate whether non-native speakers can benefit from providing tone marks, a set of symbols to show pitch contour, in learning to distinguish and produce Cantonese tones. The research will be conducted in 3 locations: the United States, Thailand and Hong Kong, where native speakers of American English, Mandarin, Thai, and Cantonese are easily found. In the United States, native speakers of American English and native speakers of Mandarin will participate in a listening-based tone learning experiment to learn to hear and produce the contrasts of Cantonese tones with or without the help of tone marks. Although both Cantonese and Mandarin are varieties of Chinese, they have different tone systems. While Mandarin has four tones (high, mid rising, low-dipping and high falling), Cantonese has six (high, mid, low, high-rising, low-rising and low falling). Studies have shown that Mandarin speakers have difficulties learning Cantonese tones. The same experiment will be conducted in Thailand with native speakers of Thai. Native speakers of Cantonese in Hong Kong will participate in the experiment to provide a comparison case. The investigators will assess whether the addition of tone marks can result in substantial improvement in distinguishing and producing Cantonese tones by the non-native speakers. The investigators will also assess whether people from different language backgrounds exhibit different learning patterns and whether they can achieve native-like results. The findings from this research will provide insight into how foreign language learners integrate visual and auditory information during non-native sound learning. The results will also show how human beings use visual and auditory information in speech processing in general. This study will also have the potential to improve the teaching of tone languages. If tone marks are proven to be helpful, they can easily be included in teaching materials and used as a teaching method for better tone-learning outcomes.

不同的语言如何使用音高来传达意思。在声调语言中，音高用于区分词义。例如，在普通话中，“ma”这个音节用稳定的高声调表示“妈妈”，但用降调表示“骂”。声调语言占世界6000种语言的60%-70%；其中大约 20% 的音调听起来非常相似，非母语人士很难区分。由于全球化、国际商务、移民和跨文化交流，世界各地越来越多的人正在学习声调语言。在美国，截至2013年，仅学习汉语的大学生人数就超过6.1万人，到2050年这一数字很可能超过13.4万人。随着美国经济日益国际化，对外语能力的需求越来越强烈，越南语、泰语等许多不常用的声调语言吸引了大量学习者。然而，学习声调语言是具有挑战性的。研究表明，一般来说，人们在区分和发音外语声调方面存在困难，这阻碍了跨文化交流，因为发音错误会导致沟通不畅。因此，更好地学习声调语言将有助于美国商界与中国和其他使用声调语言的地区进行贸易。该项目的重点是学习粤语声调的过程，粤语是一种非母语人士难以区分声调的语言。具体来说，该项目旨在研究非母语人士是否可以从提供声调标记（一组显示音高轮廓的符号）中受益，以学习区分和产生粤语声调。该研究将在三个地点进行：美国、泰国和香港，在那里很容易找到以美式英语、普通话、泰语和粤语为母语的人。在美国，母语为美式英语和母语为普通话的人将参加一项基于听力的声调学习实验，学习在有或没有声调标记的帮助下听到并产生粤语声调的对比。虽然粤语和普通话都是汉语的变种，但它们有不同的声调系统。普通话有四声（高、中升、低降、高降），而粤语有六声（高、中、低、高升、低升、低降）。研究表明，说普通话的人学习粤语声调有困难。同样的实验将在泰国以泰语为母语的人进行。香港以粤语为母语的人士将参与实验，提供比较案例。调查人员将评估添加声调标记是否可以显着改善非母语人士辨别和发出粤语声调的能力。研究人员还将评估来自不同语言背景的人是否表现出不同的学习模式以及他们是否可以获得类似母语的结果。 这项研究的结果将有助于深入了解外语学习者在非母语声音学习过程中如何整合视觉和听觉信息。研究结果还将显示人类如何在语音处理中使用视觉和听觉信息。这项研究还将有可能改善声调语言的教学。如果声调标记被证明是有帮助的，它们可以很容易地包含在教材中并用作更好的声调学习效果的教学方法。