Doctoral dissertation research: Factors influencing generalization and maintenance of cross-category imitation of Mandarin regional variants

当人们听到别人的语音与自己的不同时，他们会改变自己的语言产出，这一过程被称为语音模仿。在说同一种方言的人之间，以及说不同方言的人之间，都可以观察到模仿他人说话的现象。先前的研究发现，成年人迁移到一个新的语言社区后，可以部分地习得新社区的口音。然而，人们对促进或限制长期模仿第二方言特性的机制却知之甚少。目前的项目的目标是探索语言，情境和认知因素的影响程度，模仿另一种方言的语言特性保持超出曝光和推广到新的单词。本项目将着重于模仿中国建始县和来凤县两个普通话地方变种的方言特性。第一个实验将探讨模仿如何推广到新的单音节词，以揭示汉语词汇加工的心理表征，即，音节、音调、辅音、元音或亚音段特征。实验二将考察标记重复次数和包含变体的词汇语境对模仿维持和概括程度的影响，揭示暴露量和变异性对长时语音模仿的相对贡献。实验三将在暴露后的阅读中使用不同的指令来影响被试的有意识努力，以探讨自动性在模仿维持和概括中的作用。本研究的结果将揭示跨方言模仿背后的机制，这些机制使说话人能够或限制说话人在不同的暴露环境和不同的要求下保持和概括模仿。研究结果还将为自动和控制方面的模仿，以及连接语音感知和生产的代表单位提供新的见解。该项目对语音模仿在长期语音变化中的作用，以及通过提高个人模仿，保持和概括新方言特征的能力来促进第二方言习得的方法具有更广泛的意义。

People change their own language production when hearing others' speech that differs from their own, a process known as phonetic imitation. Imitation of others' speech has been observed between speakers who speak the same dialect and also between speakers who speak different dialects. Previous studies have found that adult speakers who move to a new speech community can partially acquire the accent of the new community. What is less understood, however, is the mechanisms that facilitate or constrain long-term imitation of second-dialect properties. The goal of the current project is to explore the linguistic, situational, and cognitive factors that influence the degree to which imitation of linguistic properties of another dialect is maintained beyond exposure and generalizes to novel words. This project will focus on the imitation of dialect-specific properties across two Mandarin regional varieties spoken in Jianshi and Laifeng counties, China. The first experiment will investigate how imitation generalizes to novel monosyllabic words, to reveal the mental representations underlying word processing in Mandarin, i.e., syllables, tones, consonants, vowels, or subsegmental features. The second experiment will examine how the number of token repetitions and lexical contexts containing the variant affect the degree of imitation maintenance and generalization, to reveal the relative contributions of exposure amount and variability to long-term phonetic imitation. The third experiment will use different instructions during post-exposure reading as a way of influencing participants' conscious effort, to investigate the role of automaticity in mediating imitation maintenance and generalization. The results of this project will reveal the mechanisms underlying cross-dialect imitation that enable or constrain speakers to maintain and generalize imitation after various exposure environments and in response to different requirements. The results will also provide new insights into the automatic and controlled aspects of imitation, and the representational units connecting speech perception and production. This project has broader implications for the role of phonetic imitation in long-term sound change, and for methods to facilitate second dialect acquisition by improving individuals' ability to imitate, maintain, and generalize new dialect features.