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Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Perception, Processing and Learning of Mandarin Tone by Second Language Speakers

博士论文研究：第二语言使用者对普通话声调的感知、处理和学习

基本信息

批准号：
1824082
负责人：
Theres Gruter Nell
金额：
$ 0.9万
依托单位：
University of Hawaii
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2018-08-15 至 2021-07-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1824082&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Doctoral Dissertation Research Perception Processing

项目摘要

Mandarin Chinese is one of the most widely learned foreign languages today, and a language deemed critical to national security by the U.S. government. It is also listed in "Category IV: Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers" by the Foreign Service Institute (U.S. Dept. of State, 2016). A major contributor to this difficulty is the fact that Mandarin is a tonal language, in which differences in pitch contours alone completely change the meaning of a word (e.g., [ma]-flat tone = mother; [ma]-rising tone = hemp; [ma]-low dipping tone = horse; [ma]-falling tone = scold). A successful learner of Mandarin thus needs to be able to distinguish between different tones, connect tonal information with word meaning, and process all this information in real-time while listening and speaking. Little is known so far about which aspects of this complex learning task are particularly challenging for English-speaking learners of Mandarin, and what instructional practices may aid them in mastering this challenge.The goal of this project is to investigate second language (L2) learners' processing and use of tones at multiple levels, including tone perception, real-time lexical processing, and word learning, in order to gain a broader understanding of the challenges in the L2 acquisition of Mandarin tones by native speakers of English. To this end, the project draws on theoretical models and methodological paradigms from research in Speech Perception and Psycholinguistics that has investigated the perception and processing of tones by native speakers, and extends these paradigms to investigate the acquisition and use of tones by L2 learners. The project consists of 3 experiments. Experiment 1 employs identification and discrimination tasks well established in categorical perception research to explore the extent to which L2 learners perceive tone categorically, and the role of L2 experience in this process. Experiment 2 investigates L2 learners' use of tone in the real-time comprehension of spoken Mandarin in a visual-world eye tracking study. Finally, Experiment 3 studies how English speakers with no tonal language experience learn novel words with tones under different training conditions. By exploring the widely recognized difficulty with tones in L2 learning in a controlled laboratory environment, this project will advance our understanding of how L2 learners perceive, process and learn tones in Mandarin, and provide first-hand evidence to inform evidence-based L2 instruction and curricular materials in a language critical to U.S. national security.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

普通话是当今学习最广泛的外语之一，也是美国政府认为对国家安全至关重要的语言。它还被美国外交服务研究所(USD.)列为“第四类：对以英语为母语的人来说特别困难的语言”。2016年)。造成这一困难的一个主要因素是，普通话是一种声调语言，单是音高轮廓的差异就会完全改变一个词的意思(例如，[ma]-平调=母亲；[ma]-升调=大麻；[ma]-低调=马；[ma]-降调=斥责)。因此，一个成功的普通话学习者需要能够区分不同的声调，将声调信息与词义联系起来，并在听和说的同时实时处理所有这些信息。到目前为止，对于这项复杂的学习任务中哪些方面对以英语为母语的普通话学习者来说特别具有挑战性，以及哪些教学实践可以帮助他们掌握这一挑战，目前还知之甚少。本项目的目标是调查第二语言学习者对声调的处理和使用，包括声调感知、实时词汇处理和单词学习，以更广泛地了解母语为英语的人在习得普通话声调方面面临的挑战。为此，该项目借鉴了言语知觉和心理语言学研究中的理论模型和方法范式，研究了本族语者对声调的感知和加工，并将这些范式扩展到研究二语学习者对声调的习得和使用。该项目由3个实验组成。实验一采用在范畴知觉研究中已有的识别和辨别任务来探讨二语学习者对声调的认知程度，以及二语经验在这一过程中的作用。实验二通过一项视觉眼动研究考察了二语学习者在实时理解普通话口语过程中声调的使用情况。最后，实验3考察了没有声调语言经验的英语学习者在不同训练条件下学习有声调新词的情况。通过探索在受控的实验室环境中学习二语声调的公认困难，该项目将促进我们对二语学习者如何感知、处理和学习普通话声调的理解，并提供第一手证据，为以对美国国家安全至关重要的语言进行循证的二语教学和课程材料提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。