Development of a script of phonemically balanced monosyllable lists of Mandarin-Chinese

Objectives To develop a set of monosyllable audiometry test material that can be used in speech recognition testing in Mandarin Chinese. Materials and Methods In an effort to improve reliability and efficiency in clinical practice, a set of 30 test lists of 25 monosyllable test items each was designed with consideration of the following: length of the list, phonemical balance (PB), word utility frequency, coverage of common words, and equivalency among lists. The 30 lists contained 750 monosyllabic words and were constructed on the basis of Chinese phoneme distribution probability summarized in the Manual of Acoustic. The occurrence incidence of the 22 consonants, 36 vowels, and 4 tones of the Chinese Mandarin characters in the 30 test lists were calculated. To achieve PB, 489 monosyllables were selected from the 2500 most commonly used Chinese characters and the 4000 most commonly used Chinese phrases to compile the 30 monosyllable test lists using a computer algorithm with manual adjustment. Results Thirty phonemical balanced word lists of common Mandarin Chinese monosyllabic words were compiled. Each list consisted of 25 monosyllables. A total of 489 phonemes (consonants, vowels and tones) were included in the set. Conclusions This set of lists can potentially be used as the basic lists for future development of Mandarin PB monosyllable speech test materials.

Lexical Tone Perception in Mandarin Chinese Speakers With Aphasia

The brain localization debate of lexical tone processing concerns functional hypothesis that lexical tone, owing to its strong linguistic features, is dominant in the left hemisphere, and acoustic hypothesis that all pitch patterns, including lexical tone, are dominant in the right hemisphere due to their acoustic features. Lexical tone as a complex signal contains acoustic components that carry linguistic, paralinguistic, and nonlinguistic information. To examine these two hypotheses, the current study adopted triplet stimuli including Chinese characters, their corresponding pinyin with a diacritic, and the four diacritics representing Chinese lexical tones. The stimuli represent the variation of lexical tone for its linguistic and acoustic features. The results of a listening task by Mandarin Chinese speakers with and without aphasia support the functional hypothesis that pitch patterns are lateralized to different hemispheres of the brain depending on their functions, with lexical tone to the left hemisphere as a function of linguistic features.

Using Technology-Supported Enrichment Activities to Extend Student Learning in a Chinese as a Foreign Language

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether exposing middle school students to content above their ability level produced significant differences in students’confidence in their Chinese as a foreign language competence in each of the following four areas:reading,listening,speaking,and learning vocabulary.Participants(N=30)were sixth and seventh graders.Results of paired t-test analyses indicated that there was no significant difference in student confidence in Chinese reading competence,t(30)=0.78,p=0.22;in Chinese speaking competence,t(30)=-0.50,p=0.31;or to learn Chinese vocabulary,t(30)=-0.80,p=0.21.However,there was a significant difference in student confidence in ability to learn Chinese listening,t(30)=-1.78,p<0.05.It is suggested that exposing students to content well above their ability level can increase their confidence in ability to learn Chinese listening.

Speech perception in noise:Masking and unmasking

Speech perception is essential for daily communication.Background noise or concurrent talkers,on the other hand,can make it challenging for listeners to track the target speech(i.e.,cocktail party problem).The present study reviews and compares existing findings on speech perception and unmasking in cocktail party listening environments in English and Mandarin Chinese.The review starts with an introduction section followed by related concepts of auditory masking.The next two sections review factors that release speech perception from masking in English and Mandarin Chinese,respectively.The last section presents an overall summary of the findings with comparisons between the two languages.Future research directions with respect to the difference in literature on the reviewed topic between the two languages are also discussed.

Developing Chinese Complimenting in a Study Abroad Program

This article reports on an empirical study investigating what and how two college-level American learners of Mandarin Chinese developed their own understanding of the Chinese complimenting speech act while participating in a 7-week intensive language study abroad program. A case study approach was adopted with a focus on participants＇ self-reflection data supplemented with the researcher＇s observation data to unpack each participant＇s pragmatic developmental process throughout the program. Guided by sociocultural theory, the study uncovered the dynamic, complex and highly individualized developmental process each participant experienced. The findings revealed that Chinese people＇s special treatment of the two American students provided more constraints than opportunities for them to acquire Chinese complimenting. However, the learners＇ own motivation and approaches to learning also significantly shaped their learning process and outcomes. Pedagogical suggestions for Chinese pragmatic development in study abroad contexts are provided.

Interpretation of English Ambiguous VerbLocative Prepositional Phrase Constructions by Mandarin and Spanish Speakers:Evidence for the Representational Deficit Hypothesis

This paper presents an empirical study of the acquisition of English ambiguous verb-locative prepositional phrase constructions （VLPPs） by adult Mandarin and Spanish speakers. This study assumes that the semantic properties of the target VLPPs that relate to change-of-location in sentences such as The boat floated under the bridge arise from an uninterpretable syntactic feature selected by English but unselected by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Results obtained from an animated cartoon selection task indicate that neither the Mandarin nor the Spanish speakers at any level of English proficiency possess native-like interpretative knowledge. Tense/ Aspect effects on the interpretation of the target constructions by Spanish speakers were also found. These results are interpreted as consistent with the Representational Deficit Hypothesis view （Hawkins, 2003, 2005） of adult second language acquisition.

Non-Word Repetition Performance in Mandarin-Speaking Preschool Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment(SLI)

Childhood is a critical period for language development, and it is of great importance to discover normal language development and any specific language impairment （SLI） in child language acquisition and then to give them timely diagnosis and treatment. Also it has been previously shown that the non-word repetition task is an efficient assessment tool to screen out those children suspected with SLI. Based on this premise, the present study examined whether the non-word repetition task can be a suitable screening tool to detect language disorders for preschool children in Mandarin Chinese in China. A non-word repetition task was adapted specifically for this purpose. This study examined differences in non-word repetition performance of Mandarin-speaking preschool children screened by a criterion-referenced diagnostic test of specific language impairment （SLI） （the value of Cronbach Alpha at 0.86）. A sample of 282 children were administered the diagnostic test, and a total of 23 SLI suspects were screened out as their language ability measures deviated from the mean by 1.5 SDs. Results indicated that children with SLI made no error with respect to tone in Mandarin, but they showed great difficulty in non-word repetition skills compared to age-matched controls. The findings confirmed that the non-word repetition task is a culturally nonbiased index of language disorders, and that two syllable non-words can be used to identify language disorder.