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

博士论文研究：汉语母语听众和第二语言汉语学习者如何处理单词识别中的声调：眼动追踪研究

• 批准号: 1627554
• 负责人: Annie Tremblay
• 金额: $ 1.5万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1627554&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; How; Native

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.

在国际舞台上，中国人正在成为越来越重要的语言。因此，它已成为美国外语课程中普遍教授的语言，因此，越来越多的英语母语者正在学习中文。重要的是，中文和英语在用来传达含义的信息类型上不同：与英语不同，中文使用词汇色调（即音调运动）来对比词含义（例如，在中文中，“ MA”一词表示母亲，大麻，马或责骂，具体取决于其词汇色调）。中文和英语之间的这种差异给中文的英语学习者带来了单词识别困难。该博士学位论文项目研究了中国本地听众和熟练的成年人英语学习者如何在语音识别中使用音调信息，因为语音信号及时展开。 将进行两个视觉世界的眼球追踪实验，以研究中国本地听众和英语学习者在单词识别中使用音调信息时的三个潜在差异：（i）它们对音调的早期高度的潜在敏感性（高低）； （ii）它们对早期音高高度的细粒变异性的潜在敏感性可能不同； （iii）它们使用音调完整音调轮廓的潜在能力。假设中国听众和英国听众之间的使用时间过程将有所不同，而英国听众比中国听众更敏感到对细粒度的早期音调高度信息的敏感性（表明对词汇音调的分类感知更少），但最终在使用单词识别信息中使用音调轮廓的难度更大。这项研究的结果将为理解音调信息如何调节中国本地听众和讲英语的中文学习者的单词识别做出重要贡献，这将对中文的教学具有教学意义。