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

汉语正成为国际舞台上越来越重要的语言。因此，它已成为美国外语课程中的常用语言，因此越来越多的母语为英语的人正在学习中文。重要的是，汉语和英语在用词传达意义的信息类型上有所不同：与英语不同，汉语使用词汇语调（即，音高移动）以对比词义（例如，在汉语中，“妈”这个词可以指母亲、大麻、马或责骂，这取决于它的词汇语气）。汉语和英语之间的这种差异给以英语为母语的汉语学习者带来了词汇识别的困难。本博士论文研究了母语为汉语的听众和熟练的成年英语学习者如何在语音信号随时间展开的过程中使用声调信息进行单词识别。 本研究通过两个视觉世界眼动实验，探讨了汉语本族语者和英语学习者在使用声调信息进行单词识别时的三个潜在差异：（1）他们对声调早期音高的敏感性不同（高与低）;（ii）他们的潜在不同的敏感性，以细粒度的变化，在这个早期的音高高度;以及（iii）它们使用音调的完整音高轮廓的潜在不同能力。据推测，声调信息的使用的时间过程将不同的中国和英国的听众，与英语听众表现出更敏感的细粒度的早期音高高度信息比中国的听众（这表明较少的词汇声调的分类感知），但最终有更多的困难，在使用音高轮廓信息在单词识别。本研究的发现将有助于理解声调信息是如何调节汉语本族语者和英语学习者的词汇识别的，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.