Doctoral Dissertation Research: Acquisition and Processing of Pitch Accents: A Cross-linguistic Study of English and Japanese Second Language Learners

本文探讨了二语使用韵律--句子的“节奏”和“旋律”--来传达和理解信息结构。在英语中，对比信息(“是玛丽安娜做的苹果面包吗？”--“玛丽安娜做的香蕉面包。”)以及新的信息(“玛丽安娜做了什么？”--“玛丽安娜做了香蕉面包。”)用更高的音调和更长的持续时间来强调，而旧的信息则不那么重音(“谁做的香蕉面包？”--“玛丽安娜做的香蕉面包。”)对比信息和新信息通过音调来区分：前者为低调后高调，后者为高平调。在东京--相反，在日语中，音调的存在与否表明了词义(“me”、“rain”与“ame”的意思)，而不是“信息结构”。鉴于这些差异，这项双向研究考察了目的语韵律知觉是否受母语(L1)特征的调节，以及二语学习者如何发展信息结构的韵律标记。对1-日本英语学习者和1-日本英语学习者进行了3种韵律--对比音高、正常高音、去重音--及其与信息结构的联系的测试：(1)感知任务，其中音调和持续时间的自然度相对于信息状态进行评级；(2)二元图像着色产生任务，操纵颜色和绘图工具的信息状态(“用蓝色喷雾/蓝色笔/红色笔给狗上色。现在用红笔给猫上色。“)；(3)理解任务，与任务(2)对应的听力任务。这是第一次系统地操纵和分析韵律细节的二语韵律研究，并在控制良好的情景实验中测试二语学习者的感知、产生和理解能力。由于二语学习者对韵律信息的使用知之甚少，该项目可以作为形成韵律的二语习得理论的重要数据来源，并有助于为更高水平的语音习得/处理/教学制定二语议程。

This dissertation investigates second language (L2) use of prosody--the "rhythm" and "melody" of sentences--to convey and comprehend Information Structure. In English, contrastive information ("Did Mariana make the apple bread?"-"Mariana made the BANANA bread.") and new information ("What did Mariana make?"-"Mariana made the BANANA bread.") are emphasized with higher pitch and longer duration, whereas old information is deaccented ("Who made the banana bread?"-"Mariana made the banana bread."). Contrastive information and new information are differentiated by tune of pitch: the former with low tone followed by high tone, the latter with high plateau tone. In Tokyo-Japanese, by contrast, presence or absence of pitch indicates word meaning ("a'me" 'rain' vs. "ame" 'candy'), not Information Structure. In light of these differences, this bi-directional study examines whether Target Language prosodic perception is modulated by native language (L1) properties and how L2 learners develop prosodic marking of Information Structure. L1-Japanese learners of English and L1-English learners of Japanese are tested on 3 prosodies--contrastive pitch, regular high pitch, deaccentuation--and their link to Information Structure: (1) a perception task in which naturalness of pitch and duration vis-a-vis information status is rated; (2) a dyadic picture-coloring production task, manipulating information status of colors and drawing instruments ("Color the dog with the blue spray / blue pen / red pen. Now color the cat with the red pen."); (3) a comprehension task, the listening counterpart to task (2), utilizing eyetracking.This is the first investigation of L2 prosody that systematically manipulates and analyzes prosodic details and tests L2 learners' perception, production, and comprehension in well-controlled, contextualized experiments. Since very little is known about L2 learners' use of prosodic information, the project could serve as an important data source for formulating an L2 acquisition theory of prosody and help set an L2 agenda for higher-level phonological acquisition/processing/teaching.