Impaired vowel discrimination in Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics

2015-2016 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperVersion of RecordPublishe

Production of Mandarin Chinese Tones by Sri Lankan CFL Learners: An Acoustic Analysis

Tonal variation in Mandarin forms a relationship with the meanings of words at a lexical level. Tones and tone sandhi are considered distinctive features of Mandarin Chinese phonetics; thus, acquiring accurate Mandarin pronunciation is challenging for speakers of other languages. The present study examined the production of Mandarin tones by Sri Lankan learners through acoustic analysis of f0 using Praat. The study participants were seven (n=7) undergraduate students at intermediate-level Chinese. Each participant recorded a sample of 20 elements, totaling 140 at three tiers: isolation, disyllabic form, and synthesis. The recorded acoustic data were analyzed using Praat 5.4.04 and SPSS Statistics 21. The results indicated that the mean f0 values of the realization of the four tones by the informants are heterogenous at all three tiers. The realization of T3 demonstrated a low accuracy, while T2 was realized with the highest accuracy at all three tiers. As revealed by the tone sandhi analysis, participants have resorted to the underlying representation of the tone sandhi than the surface realization

Beyond the walls of classrooms: Exploring the pedagogical effectiveness of text-to-speech-based shadowing on the development of Mandarin tones

With limited classroom time (Collins & Muñoz, 2016), teachers struggle to provide personalized language input (listening activities) and opportunities for students to practice output (speaking). Text-to-speech synthesizers (TTS), also known as text readers, offer a possible solution by allowing students to interact with the computer anytime-anywhere, and at their own pace (Cardoso, 2022). As such, this technology has the potential to improve students' listening skills and provide flexible language practice (Little, 1995). Although TTS offers many benefits (e.g., immediate access to the language; Liakin et al., 2017), an unresolved issue is that the technology does not incorporate an output-inducing component (Fang, 2017). To address this issue and contribute to the field of computer-assisted pronunciation instruction, this study combines TTS with shadowing (i.e., the repetition of a word or phrases immediately after hearing it; Lambert, 1994), a technique that has been proven to be effective in developing L2 pronunciation (Foote & McDonough, 2017; Zajdler, 2020). By combining these two technologies, to which we will refer as “TTS-based shadowing training” (TTS-S henceforth), our approach provides learners with the benefits of both TTS (exposure to input) and shadowing (opportunities to practice output). To determine the probability of success of this innovative approach, this study examined the pedagogical effectiveness of using TTS-S in a self-regulated learning environment to acquire tones #1 and #4 in Mandarin Chinese. While tone #1 (high tone) is relatively easy to acquire in comparison with other tones, tone #4 (descending tone) is considered one of the hardest to produce (Hendry, 2023). The research was guided by the following research question: can TTS-S help L2 learners raise their sound awareness and improve their perception and production of the target Mandarin tones over six weeks? By means of pre-/post-tests (to assess effectiveness in pronunciation), ten beginner-level participants were asked to complete: (1) an awareness task in which they verbalize their metacognitive knowledge of Mandarin tones; (2) ABX tasks to assess their perception of Mandarin tones; and (3) a production task to evaluate the production of the target tones. Results indicate that the use of TTS-S did not yield significant enhancements in terms of awareness, perception, and production, possibly due to the presence of a ceiling effect in some of the measures adopted and other methodological limitations

Methods and Effects of Shadowing Using Online Authentic Videos on L2 Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones

Mandarin Chinese tones are notoriously difficult for second language (L2) learners. Previous research focuses on tone training methods that can help learners produce monosyllabic lexical tones, and studies about the production of multisyllabic lexical tones at the sentence level in spontaneous speech are limited. This study applies shadowing—a method where the learners repeat what they heard with as little delay as possible—to tone training and compares the effects of using authentic videos and textbook audios as shadowing materials for beginner L2 Mandarin learners’ tone improvement at the sentence level. Fourteen students in elementary Chinese classes at an American university participated in the tone training activity for four weeks. The participants in the “authentic video” group received authentic videos as their training materials, while the “textbook audio” group was trained with textbook audios. The participants shadowed the materials twice a week, six times per session, at home in their free time. Tone accuracy was rated by Mandarin native speakers according to the pre-test and the post-test consisting of a read-aloud task and a one-on-one conversation. Qualitative and quantitative surveys were conducted to analyze learners’ attitudes toward the shadowing activity and the materials. The results indicate that learners in both groups showed significant improvements in their accuracy in spontaneous speech with no significant differences between the two groups. As for learners’ attitudes, although the participants reported overall positive feedback on the shadowing activity regardless of the materials, authentic materials generated great interest from the participants and were more appealing to the learners. A strong correlation between learners’ confidence in speaking and flexibility of the activity was also found. Based on the finding, pedagogical implications are discussed, including how to select suitable materials and shadowing instructions. For example, educators could introduce textbook audios first and gradually add authentic materials. The findings provide Mandarin Chinese instructors an effective and engaging way to improve learners’ tone production in spontaneous speaking. Incorporating shadowing activities into class has great potential to encourage learners’ autonomy without occupying precious class time. The findings not only contribute to research on teaching Chinese as a second language and the related pedagogy but also shed light on the use of authentic materials in second language teaching and learning

Hakka tone training for native speakers of tonal and nontonal languages

Language learning becomes increasingly difficult when novel linguistic features are introduced. Studies have shown that learners from various language backgrounds can be trained to perceive lexical tone, which assigns meaning to words using variations in pitch. In this thesis, we investigated whether native speakers of tonal Mandarin Chinese and tonal Vietnamese outperformed native speakers of nontonal English when learning Hakka Chinese tones following five sessions of tone training, and whether the complexity (i.e., density) of a listener’s native tone inventory facilitated nonnative tone learning. All groups improved in tone identification and tone word learning following training, with improvements persisting three weeks following the cessation of training. Although both tonal groups outperformed the English group in most tasks, the Mandarin group showed the most consistent advantages over the English group across tasks. Findings suggest that tone experience bolsters tone learning, but density of the tone inventory does not provide an advantage. Confusion patterns offer detailed insight of the interaction between nonnative tones and native tonal and intonational categories

The Perception, Processing and Learning of Mandarin Lexical Tone by Second Language Speakers

Ph.D

Tone processing and the acquisition of tone in Mandarin- and English-speaking typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterised by pervasive social difficulties, which partly manifest themselves in inappropriate pragmatics. It has also been hypothesised that individuals with ASD, or at least those on the lower-functioning end of the autism spectrum, may also have atypical pitch and musical perception. This thesis investigates pitch perception in autism in a domain where pitch is directly represented in the grammar: tones. Tone perception was investigated in a series of four experiments with high-functioning English and Mandarin ASD participants with and without language problems and their corresponding TD groups. The first experiment involved a tone comprehension task (only for the Mandarin participants) using picture-matching. The second experiment involved a psychoacoustic tone discrimination task using the Mandarin Tone 1-4 continuum. The third experiment was a categorical perception task involving two tasks: a naming task and a two-step identification task. The results of the experiments indicated subtle but persistent issues with the grammatical representation of tones for Mandarin ASD speakers, especially for those with language problems. Although ASD participants’ tone comprehension and tone discrimination abilities are essentially in line with their typical peers, they have different error patterns in comprehension of Tone 2-3 distinctions and they treat nonce word stimuli more like pure tone stimuli in identification, suggesting a weaker representation of abstract tones. In addition, the categorical perception task revealed that although the performance of Mandarin ASD participants in the naming task was not distinguishable from their typically developing peers, the two-step identification task revealed a less strongly categorical perception of the Tone 1-4 continuum. In addition, the performance of the ASD SLP groups was also overall worse. These results altogether constitute a significant discovery of a grammatical impairment of people living with ASD. This population might have prosodic impairments relating their pitch perception, and their ability to categorise pitch contours in a grammatical fashion, in addition to their pragmatic difficulties