15.2694, Diss: Phonetics/Psycholing: Huang: 'Language...'

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-15-2694. Wed Sep 29 2004. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 15.2694, Diss: Phonetics/Psycholing: Huang: 'Language...'

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org)
        Sheila Collberg, U of Arizona
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Gayathri Sriram <gayatri at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.


===========================Directory==============================

1)
Date: 28-Sep-2004
From: Tsan Huang < huang at ling.osu.edu >
Subject: Language-Specificity in Auditory Perception of Chinese Tones


	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:07:02
From: Tsan Huang < huang at ling.osu.edu >
Subject: Language-Specificity in Auditory Perception of Chinese Tones

Institution: Ohio State University
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 25-Jun-1905

Author: Tsan Huang

Dissertation Title: Language-Specificity in Auditory Perception of Chinese Tones

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories;
Neurolinguistics; Phonetics; Phonology; Psycholinguistics

Subject Language(s):
Chinese, Mandarin (Code: CHN)


Dissertation Director(s):
Elizabeth Hume
Keith Johnson
Marjorie K.M. Chan

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation investigates the phenomenon of language-specificity in
the auditory perception of Chinese tones. Chinese and American English
(AE) listeners participated in a series of perception experiments, which
involved short ISIs (300ms in Experiment 1 and 100ms elsewhere) and
an AX discrimination (limited stimulus set in Experiments 2 and 3,
speeded response in Experiments BJ, RG and YT) or AX
degree-of-difference rating (Experiment 4) task. All experiments used
natural speech monosyllabic tone stimuli, except Experiment 2, which
used sinewave simulations of Putonghua (Beijing Mandarin) tones. AE
listeners showed psychoacoustic listening in all experiments, paying
much attention to onset and offset pitch. Chinese listeners showed
language-specific patterns in all experiments to various degrees. The
most robust language-specific effects of Putonghua were found in
Experiments 1, 3 and 4, where the T214 (as well as T35) neutralization
rule shortened the perceptual distance between T35 and T214 (or that
between T55 and T35) for Chinese listeners. Cross-dialectal as well as
age differences were observed among Chinese listeners in Experiments
BJ, RG and YT using natural speech stimuli from Putonghua, Rugao (a
Jianghuai Mandarin dialect, Jiangsu Province) and Yantai (a Northern
Mandarin dialect, Shandong Province), respectively .Listeners generally
showed native advantage in perceiving tones in their own dialects.
Cross-dialectal tone category correspondences (R44 to T51 and Y55 to
T51) caused more confusion for older Rugao and Yantai listeners
between the relevant tones. Furthermore, Yantai older listeners, with
more sandhi rules in their dialect, showed different perceptual patterns
from other listeners, including Yantai young listeners. Since these
experiments employed procedures hypothesized to tap the auditory
trace mode (e.g. Pisoni, 1973; Macmillan, 1987), language-specificity
found in this dissertation seems to support the proposal of an auditory
cortical map (Guenther et al. 1999). But the data also suggest that the
model need to be refined to account for different degrees of
language-specificity, which are better handled by the lexical distance
model advanced by Johnson (2004), although the latter model may be a
bit too rigid on how much lexical interference is allowed in low-level
auditory perception.



-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-15-2694