Adapting to unsystematic variation in foreign-accented speech

适应外语口音的非系统变化

• 批准号: 2004279
• 负责人: Eric Pelzl
• 金额: $ 14.3万
• 依托单位: Pelzl Eric
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-15 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2004279&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Adapting; unsystematic; variation; foreign; accented

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Linguistics program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Janet van Hell, Dr. Carrie Jackson, and Dr. Matthew Carlson at Penn State University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating how people adapt to foreign-accented pronunciation. Adaptation is the process by which listeners adjust to unfamiliar spoken sounds produced by an accented speaker. Existing research has shown that adaptation to accented speech often happens quickly and automatically. This project will extend such research to Mandarin Chinese. Mandarin is a lexical tone language that can use pitch patterns to differentiate syllables and words. Adult second language learners of Mandarin typically struggle to control and remember tones, leading them to make frequent tone errors. For listeners, these errors might affect adaptation to other aspects of foreign-accented Mandarin, either slowing their accommodation of accented pronunciation, or causing them to ignore all tones. This research may help us to understand why adaptation to accented speech sometimes fails to occur. By focusing on ways that second language pronunciation impacts listeners, this research also has the potential to inform language teachers and program administrators on how best to prioritize pronunciation in language training.This research addresses the occurrence of unsystematic tone errors within a foreign-accented speaker's Mandarin speech. Unsystematic tone errors are unpredictable for listeners in terms of both when and how they will occur. The focus on unsystematic pronunciation errors adds a critical dimension that must be accounted for in models of listener adaptation. Specifically, this project examines word recognition in native Mandarin listeners, by contrasting listener responses when a foreign-accented speaker produces frequent unsystematic tone errors compared to when a speaker produces few tone errors. Using a forced-choice word recognition paradigm, and measuring eye-movements during word recognition, two sets of experiments will test whether Mandarin listeners can ignore (i.e., down-weight) tones, and whether this down-weighting impacts the speed and outcome of word recognition. A further set of experiments will examine how previous experience teaching foreign language impacts listeners’ adaptive processes. Together, these experiments will shed light on accent adaption in tonal languages, and provide new insight into the importance of tonal accuracy in second language Mandarin speech. By involving language teachers directly in the research, the project has the potential to build bridges between laboratory science and classroom settings, which will lead to better informed language instructors, and may provide future opportunities to move scientific investigations into classrooms.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.

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济科学(SBE)博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划和SBE语言学计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在宾夕法尼亚州立大学珍妮特·范·海尔博士、凯莉·杰克逊博士和马修·卡尔森博士的赞助下，这项博士后奖学金支持一位研究人们如何适应带有外国口音的发音的早期职业科学家。顺应是听者对带口音的人发出的不熟悉的口语声音进行调整的过程。现有的研究表明，对带口音的语音的适应通常会迅速而自动地发生。这个项目将把这种研究扩展到普通话。普通话是一种词汇语调语言，可以使用音高模式来区分音节和单词。成年的普通话第二语言学习者通常很难控制和记忆声调，导致他们经常犯声调错误。对于听者来说，这些错误可能会影响他们对外国口音普通话其他方面的适应，要么减缓他们对重音发音的适应，要么导致他们忽略所有声调。这项研究可能有助于我们理解为什么对重音语音的适应有时无法发生。通过关注第二语言发音对听者的影响，这项研究也有可能告诉语言教师和项目管理人员如何在语言培训中最好地确定发音的优先顺序。这项研究旨在解决带有外国口音的人的普通话中出现非系统性语调错误的问题。对于听者来说，非系统的音调错误在何时和如何发生都是不可预测的。对非系统性发音错误的关注增加了一个关键维度，必须在听者适应模型中加以考虑。具体地说，这个项目通过对比带有外国口音的人经常出现非系统性声调错误时和很少发生声调错误时的听者反应，来检查母语为普通话的听者的单词识别。使用强制选择的单词识别范式，并测量单词识别过程中的眼动，两组实验将测试普通话听者是否可以忽略(即轻声)声调，以及这种轻声是否会影响单词识别的速度和结果。另一组实验将考察以前的外语教学经验如何影响听者的适应过程。综上所述，这些实验将有助于揭示声调语言中的口音顺应，并为第二语言普通话语音中声调准确性的重要性提供新的见解。通过让语言教师直接参与研究，该项目有可能在实验室科学和课堂环境之间架起桥梁，这将导致更知情的语言教师，并可能提供未来将科学调查带入课堂的机会。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。

项目成果

Native language experience with tones influences both phonetic and lexical processes when acquiring a second tonal language

母语声调体验会影响习得第二声调语言时的语音和词汇过程

• DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2022.101197
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Journal of Phonetics
• 影响因子: 1.9
• 作者: Pelzl, Eric;Liu, Jiang;Qi, Chunhong
• 通讯作者: Qi, Chunhong

Advanced Second Language Learners of Mandarin Show Persistent Deficits for Lexical Tone Encoding in Picture-to-Word Form Matching

• DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.689423
• 发表时间: 2021-06
• 作者: Eric Pelzl;Ellen F. Lau;Taomei Guo;R. Dekeyser