EAPSI: Training tonal awareness in second language Chinese learners

随着中国崛起为全球经济强国，汉语已经成为各级教育学生流行的第二语言。尽管汉语教学越来越受欢迎，但有关汉语教学方法的研究却很少，从第二语言学习者的角度研究汉语学习过程的研究更是少之又少。汉语的一个关键方面是词汇声调的存在，这是西方学习者经常遇到的问题：说话人音调的变化会改变一个词的意思。本研究将探讨可用于训练学习者分析声调信息的方法，以促进语言学习者头脑中的处理。该项目将与中国北京科技大学著名的汉语第二语言阅读专家康妮·群冠博士合作进行。该项目将通过前测和后测的培训程序，逐步了解第二语言学习者的声调处理经验。本研究的主要目的是确定是否可以训练学习者在阅读过程中分离音节信息和声调信息。前测和后测将使用同音判断任务来量化这种分离，这将允许研究人员确定学习者对声调和音节信息的敏感度。这项研究的参与者将包括以汉语为母语的字母语言学习者，他们将与一组以汉语为母语的人进行比较，以确定第二语言组中声调加工的确切性质。该NSF EAPSI奖是与中国科技部合作资助的。

With the rise of China as a global economic power, Chinese has become a popular second language for students at all levels of education. Despite this growth in popularity, very little time has been spent on refining the pedagogical methods related to Chinese language teaching and even less research has been done to investigate the processes involved with learning Chinese from the second language learner's perspective. One of the key aspects of the Chinese language that western learners often struggle with is the presence of lexical tones: changes in a speaker's voice pitch can change the meaning of a word. This study will investigate methods that can be used to train learners to parse out tonal information in order to facilitate processing in the language learner's mind. This project will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Connie Qun Guan, a well-known expert on second language reading in Chinese at the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, China.This project will take steps toward understanding the second language learner's experience of tone processing by using a training procedure with a pre-test and post-test. The primary objective of this research is to determine whether learners can be trained to separate segmental and tonal information in the process of reading. The pre-test and post-test will quantify this separation using a homophone judgment task that will allow the researcher to determine the learner's sensitivity to both tonal and segmental information. Participants in this study will include native alphabetic language learners of Chinese who will be compared against a group of monolingual native Chinese speakers to determine the precise nature of tonal processing in the second language group. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.