Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Native Chinese Listeners and Second-Language Chinese Learners Process Tones in Word Recognition: An Eye-tracking Study

汉语正在成为国际舞台上一种日益重要的语言。因此，汉语已经成为美国外语课程中普遍教授的语言，因此越来越多的以英语为母语的人在学习汉语。重要的是，汉语和英语在用来表达意义的信息类型上有所不同：与英语不同，汉语使用词汇声调(即音调)来对比词义(例如，在汉语中，单词“ma”可以表示母亲、大麻、马或责骂，这取决于它的词调)。汉语和英语的这种差异给以英语为母语的汉语学习者带来了单词识别的困难。这篇博士论文研究了母语为汉语的听者和熟练掌握汉语的成年英语学习者如何在语音信号随着时间的推移而在单词识别中使用声调信息。我们将通过两个视觉世界的眼动跟踪实验来考察汉语母语者和英语学习者在单词识别中使用声调信息的三个潜在差异：(I)他们对声调早期音高(高音和低音)的潜在不同敏感性；(Ii)他们对早期音高细粒度变化的潜在不同敏感性；以及(Iii)他们使用完整音调轮廓的潜在不同能力。假设汉语和英语听者使用声调信息的时间进程不同，英语听者对细粒度的早期音高信息表现出比中国听者更敏感的表现(这意味着对词汇声调的分类知觉较少)，但最终在单词识别中使用音高轮廓信息的难度更大。本研究的发现将有助于理解声调信息对汉语母语听者和英语学习者词汇再认的调节作用，并对汉语教学有一定的指导意义。

Chinese is becoming an increasingly important language on the international scene. Accordingly, it has become a commonly taught language in foreign language programs in the United States, and thus an increasingly large number of native English speakers are learning Chinese. Importantly, Chinese and English differ in the types of information they use to convey meaning in words: unlike English, Chinese uses lexical tones (i.e., pitch movement) to contrast word meanings (e.g., in Chinese, the word "ma" can mean mother, hemp, horse, or scold depending on its lexical tone). This difference between Chinese and English poses word recognition difficulties for English-speaking learners of Chinese. This doctoral dissertation project examines how native Chinese listeners and proficient adult English-speaking learners of Chinese use tonal information in word recognition as the speech signal unfolds in time. Two visual-world eye-tracking experiments will be conducted to investigate three potential differences between native Chinese listeners and English learners of Chinese in their use of tonal information in word recognition: (i) their potentially different sensitivities to the early pitch height of the tone (high vs. low); (ii) their potentially different sensitivities to fine-grained variability in this early pitch height; and (iii) their potentially different abilities to use the complete pitch contour of the tone. It is hypothesized that the time course of use of tonal information will differ between Chinese and English listeners, with English listeners showing more sensitivity to fine-grained early pitch height information than Chinese listeners (suggesting less categorical perception of lexical tones) but ultimately having more difficulty in using pitch contour information in word recognition. The findings of this research will make an important contribution to the understanding of how tonal information modulates word recognition in native Chinese listeners and English-speaking learners of Chinese, and it will have pedagogical implications for the teaching of Chinese.