Lexical Tone Research Articles

The role of phonology in non-native word learning: Evidence from cross-situational statistical learning

Abstract Adults often encounter difficulty perceiving and processing sounds of a second language (L2). In order to acquire word-meaning mappings, learners need to determine what the language-relevant phonological contrasts are in the language. In this study, we examined the influence of phonology on non-native word learning, determining whether the language-relevant phonological contrasts could be acquired by abstracting over multiple experiences, and whether awareness of these contrasts could be related to learning. We trained English- and Mandarin-native speakers with pseudowords via a cross-situational statistical learning task (CSL). Learners were able to acquire the phonological contrasts across multiple situations, but similar-sounding words (i.e., minimal pairs) were harder to acquire, and words that contrast in a non-native suprasegmental feature (i.e., Mandarin lexical tone) were even harder for English-speakers, even with extended exposure. Furthermore, awareness of the non-native phonology was not found to relate to learning.

Production rather than observation: comparison between the roles of embodiment and conceptual metaphor in L2 lexical tone learning

BackgroundIt remains unclear how embodiment and conceptual metaphor play a role in second language (L2) lexical tone learning. AimsThe present study aimed to examine the roles of pitch gesture production (PP), pitch feature observation (PO), and word-picture association (WA) approach in L2 lexical tone learning. SampleParticipants were 90 undergraduate students with Mandarin as their native language. MethodsParticipants learned Thai lexical tones via the three approaches and completed tone discrimination, tone identification, and word-picture matching tasks. ResultsThe PP performed better than the PO and WA in discriminating between and identifying specific tones. The PP was more accurate than the WA in word-picture matching. ConclusionsThe pitch gesture production's embodiment was superior to the pitch feature observation's conceptual metaphor in learning L2 lexical tones. However, its role was affected by lexical tones' pitch features, test tasks, and learners' tonal experience.

Mandarin-Speaking Amusics' Online Recognition of Tone and Intonation.

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder of musical pitch processing. Its linguistic consequences have been examined separately for speech intonations and lexical tones. However, in a tonal language such as Chinese, the processing of intonations and lexical tones interacts with each other during online speech perception. Whether and how the musical pitch disorder might affect linguistic pitch processing during online speech perception remains unknown. We investigated this question with intonation (question vs. statement) and lexical tone (rising Tone 2 vs. falling Tone 4) identification tasks using the same set of sentences, comparing behavioral and event-related potential measurements between Mandarin-speaking amusics and matched controls. We specifically focused on the amusics without behavioral lexical tone deficits (the majority, i.e., pure amusics). Results showed that, despite relative to normal performance when tested in word lexical tone test, pure amusics demonstrated inferior recognition than controls during sentence tone and intonation identification. Compared to controls, pure amusics had larger N400 amplitudes in question stimuli during tone task and smaller P600 amplitudes in intonation task. These data indicate that musical pitch disorder affects both tone and intonation processing during sentence processing even for pure amusics, whose lexical tone processing was intact when tested with words.

Investigating Perception to Production Transfer in Children With Cochlear Implants: A High Variability Phonetic Training Study.

This study builds upon an established effective training method to investigate the advantages of high variability phonetic identification training for enhancing lexical tone perception and production in Mandarin-speaking pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients, who typically face ongoing challenges in these areas. Thirty-two Mandarin-speaking children with CIs were quasirandomly assigned into the training group (TG) and the control group (CG). The 16 TG participants received five sessions of high variability phonetic training (HVPT) within a period of 3 weeks. The CG participants did not receive the training. Perception and production of Mandarin tones were administered before (pretest) and immediately after (posttest) the completion of HVPT via lexical tone recognition task and picture naming task. Both groups participated in the identical pretest and posttest with the same time frame between the two test sessions. TG showed significant improvement from pretest to posttest in identifying Mandarin tones for both trained and untrained speech stimuli. Moreover, perceptual learning of HVPT significantly facilitated trainees' production of T1 and T2 as rated by a cohort of 10 Mandarin-speaking adults with normal hearing, which was corroborated by acoustic analyses revealing improved fundamental frequency (F0) median for T1 and T2 production and enlarged F0 movement for T2 production. In contrast, TG children's production of T3 and T4 showed nonsignificant changes across two test sessions. Meanwhile, CG did not exhibit significant changes in either perception or production. The results suggest a limited and inconsistent transfer of perceptual learning to lexical tone production in children with CIs, which challenges the notion of a robust transfer and highlights the complexity of the interaction between perceptual training and production outcomes. Further research on individual differences with a longitudinal design is needed to optimize the training protocol or tailor interventions to better meet the diverse needs of learners.

A Review of Research on The Neural Mechanisms of Lexical Tone Acquisition

The phenomenon of bilingualism is becoming more and more important as international communication becomes closer and closer. In the past, linguists' studies on second language acquisition by bilinguals seldom dealt with the language processing mechanism of the human brain itself, but the further development of science and technology has made it possible to quantify the laws of language learning at the neural level. In this paper, the author reviews the literature on the brain-neural mechanisms of tone perception in the primary stage of bilinguals from the perspectives of native language and bilingual tone perception in light of the previous research results. At present, the main research methods adopted in the study of tone acquisition are phonological experimental research and listening and dialectic research. However, the research on tone perception mostly focuses on differentiation and recognition experiments, the use of neuroscience technology is still insufficient, and the combination between disciplines is not close enough.

Perceptual training facilitates Mandarin tone production for preschoolers with cochlear implants: Evidence from acoustic analysis

This study primarily aimed to investigate the benefits of an established perceptual training in the production of lexical tones for Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with cochlear implants (CIs). Thirty-two pediatric CI recipients were tested in this study. Half of the child participants received five sessions of high variability phonetic training (HVPT) within a period of three weeks, whereas the other half served as control who did not receive the formal training. Production of Mandarin tones was recorded before the provision (pretest) and after (posttest) the completion of the training protocol, which was coded and analyzed acoustically with automatic pitch tracking implemented in the software of Praat. Results showed significantly enhanced concave characteristic of dynamic pitch contours for the trained children’s Mandarin tones produced in posttest relative to pretest using growth curve analysis. Moreover, a tonal ellipse analysis indicated significantly improved tone differentiability and tone hit rate from pretest to posttest following training. By contrast, no significant changes were observed in the control children between the two test sessions. The findings represent initial acoustic evidence of HVPT-induced benefits in lexical tone production for CI users, which supports the application of this perceptual training protocol to aural rehabilitation practice.

Phonetic adaptation in conversation: The case of Cantonese tone merging

Phonetic adaptation occurs when one interlocutor adjusts their speech to converge to or diverge from that of their conversation partner to enhance intelligibility. While most research investigates segmental adaptations, our study focuses on suprasegmentals, specifically Cantonese tone merging. Some Cantonese speakers (“mergers”) are found to merge certain lexical tones (e.g., mid-level Tone3 and low-level Tone6), which may cause confusions when interacting with non-merger speakers. Previous research has shown that a merger may unmerge a level tone pair (Tone3/Tone6) when shadowing a non-merger. However, still unclear is whether such changes result from automatic acoustic mimicking or reflect goal-oriented adaptations for intelligibility benefits. This study uses an unscripted conversation task involving a merger and a non-merger playing a video game, where productions of merged tones may cause confusions, thus motivating goal-oriented adaptations. Initial acoustic analyses focus on average F0 and F0 taken at 10 points along the contour in target Tone3 and Tone6 productions by mergers. Differences in these values for Tone3 versus Tone6 provide evidence that a merger is unmerging the tone pair. Preliminary results show increasing unmerging trends as the task progresses, suggesting progressive alignment toward a non-merger’s productions for intelligibility gains.

Lexical encoding of second language tones in English learners of Mandarin

The study investigates how native and non-native differences in tone perception influence lexical encoding of second language (L2) tones. Previous work shows that tone language listeners perceived tones as phonemic categories while non-tone language listeners relied more on psychoacoustic cues such as pitch height to discriminate stimulus tones. However, little is known about the influence of such differences in perception on L2 tonal encoding. In the present study, two experiments were conducted with nineteen English learners of Mandarin and 20 Mandarin native speakers. Experiment 1 was an ABX task. Results showed that while native speakers’ overall performance was superior to L2 listeners’, both groups poorly discriminated tone pairs with shared tone contours (i.e., T2-T3). Experiment 2 was a medium-lag repetition priming task. In the repetition condition, significant facilitations were observed in both language groups. In the minimal-tone-pair condition, despite T2-T3 contrasts posing greater challenge for both groups to accurately distinguish than other tonal contrasts as shown in Experiment 1, positive priming was observed only in the L2 group. The findings from the two experiments suggest that the L2 listeners, although quite proficient in Mandarin, have yet to achieve native-like competence in regard to lexical tones.

Cross-Language Perception of Lexical Tones by Nordic Learners of Mandarin Chinese

While existing cross-language studies on the perception of non-native tones primarily focus on naïve listeners, this study addresses an obvious gap by investigating learners from diverse language backgrounds. Specifically, it investigates Mandarin tone perception in two groups of learners from Nordic languages, Swedish (a pitch-accent language), and Danish (a non-tonal language), as well as in a group of native Chinese speakers. Analysis of their performance in tone identification task revealed a slight advantage for Swedish learners, implying the influence of their pitch accent background in learning Mandarin tones. However, both Swedish and Danish learners who excelled in the tone identification task exhibited similar perception of within-category tonal variations but differed from native Chinese speakers. Additionally, the study found that the presence of length contrast, a prosodic feature in the learners’ native languages, significantly influences their perception of Mandarin tones.

Tones shape notes: The realization of lexical tones in Chaozhou songs

In tone languages where pitch is used to distinguish word meanings, questions arise about how tonal pitch is preserved in singing. While most studies focus on tone-melody matching by examining pitch changes between tones/notes, the pitch change of tones realized within individual notes is less investigated. This article explores how singers realized tones when singing in Chaozhou, a Southern Chinese language with a complex tonal system. It used a Chaozhou song containing 10 tonal patterns to collect data from 34 Chaozhou singers. Results show that tones are realized to varying degrees when sung, and pitch range, pitch level, and neighboring pitch of tones appear to be influential factors. Vocal training affected the realization of falling tones /53/ and /42/ by reducing the pitch fall and also affected rising tone /23/ with a larger pitch change being found for non-professional singers than for professionals. However, the singers’ experience of singing in Chaozhou did not greatly affect the tone realization. An effect of the metrical structure was only found for tones /53/ and /42/. In addition, tone sandhi affects tones /53/ and /21/. The analysis also hints at the potential effect of melodic intervals on the pitch change of tones when sung.

Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones and Stops in Mandarin-Speaking Musicians and Nonmusicians

This study investigates the perception of Mandarin lexical tones and stops to examine the degree of overlap between music and language. Eighteen musicians and 21 nonmusicians participated in a typical categorical perception task. Results showed that musicians and nonmusicians had comparable degree of categorical perception of tones and stops. Compared to nonmusicians, musicians exhibited enhanced sensitivities to within-category lexical tone stimuli. However, this improved ability was not observed in the perception of stops. These findings imply that musical experience strengthens the acuity of subtle low-level acoustic variations between within-category lexical tone stimuli without interfering with the high-level phonological representations of lexical tones, and this facilitatory effect is selective and could not readily extend to stop consonants in native language.

Instrumental music training relates to intensity assessment but not emotional prosody recognition in Mandarin.

Building on research demonstrating the benefits of music training for emotional prosody recognition in nontonal languages, this study delves into its unexplored influence on tonal languages. In tonal languages, the acoustic similarity between lexical tones and music, along with the dual role of pitch in conveying lexical and affective meanings, create a unique interplay. We evaluated 72 participants, half of whom had extensive instrumental music training, with the other half serving as demographically matched controls. All participants completed an online test consisting of 210 Chinese pseudosentences, each designed to express one of five emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, or neutrality. Our robust statistical analyses, which included effect size estimates and Bayesian factors, revealed that music and nonmusic groups exhibit similar abilities in identifying the emotional prosody of various emotions. However, the music group attributed higher intensity ratings to emotional prosodies of happiness, fear, and anger compared to the nonmusic group. These findings suggest that while instrumental music training is not related to emotional prosody recognition, it does appear to be related to perceived emotional intensity. This dissociation between emotion recognition and intensity evaluation adds a new piece to the puzzle of the complex relationship between music training and emotion perception in tonal languages.

Focus-marking in a tonal language: Prosodic differences between Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder.

Abnormal speech prosody has been widely reported in individuals with autism. Many studies on children and adults with autism spectrum disorder speaking a non-tonal language showed deficits in using prosodic cues to mark focus. However, focus marking by autistic children speaking a tonal language is rarely examined. Cantonese-speaking children may face additional difficulties because tonal languages require them to use prosodic cues to achieve multiple functions simultaneously such as lexical contrasting and focus marking. This study bridges this research gap by acoustically evaluating the use of Cantonese speech prosody to mark information structure by Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder. We designed speech production tasks to elicit natural broad and narrow focus production among these children in sentences with different tone combinations. Acoustic correlates of prosodic focus marking like f0, duration and intensity of each syllable were analyzed to examine the effect of participant group, focus condition and lexical tones. Our results showed differences in focus marking patterns between Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder. The autistic children not only showed insufficient on-focus expansion in terms of f0 range and duration when marking focus, but also produced less distinctive tone shapes in general. There was no evidence that the prosodic complexity (i.e. sentences with single tones or combinations of tones) significantly affected focus marking in these autistic children and their typically-developing (TD) peers.

Constraints on novel word learning in heritage speakers.

Recent research on word learning has found that adults can rapidly learn novel words by tracking cross-situational statistics, but learning is greatly influenced by the phonological properties of the words and by the native language of the speakers. Mandarin-native speakers could easily pick up novel words with Mandarin tones after a short exposure, but English-native speakers had specific difficulty with the tonal components. It is, however, unclear how much experience with Mandarin is needed to successfully use the tonal cue in word learning. In this study, we explored this question by focusing on the heritage language population, who typically are exposed to the target language at an early age but then develop and switch to another majority language. Specifically, we investigated whether heritage Mandarin speakers residing in an English-speaking region and speaking English as a dominant language would be able to learn novel Mandarin tonal words from statistical tracking. It helps us understand whether early exposure to the target feature is sufficient to promote the use of that feature in word learning later in life. We trained 30 heritage Mandarin speakers with Mandarin pseudowords via a cross-situational statistical word learning task (CSWL). Heritage Mandarin speakers were able to learn the pseudowords across multiple situations, but similar-sounding words (i.e., minimal pairs) were more difficult to identify, and words that contrast only in lexical tones (i.e., Mandarin lexical tone) were distinguished at chance level throughout learning. We also collected information about the participants' heritage language (HL) experience and usage. We did not observe a relationship between HL experience/usage and performance in tonal word learning, suggesting that HL exposure does not necessarily lead to an advantage in learning the target language.

Investigating environmental effects on phonology using diachronic models.

Previous work has proposed various mechanisms by which the environment may affect the emergence of linguistic features. For example, dry air may cause careful control of pitch to be more effortful, and so affect the emergence of linguistic distinctions that rely on pitch such as lexical tone or vowel inventories. Criticisms of these proposals point out that there are both historical and geographic confounds that need to be controlled for. We take a causal inference approach to this problem to design the most detailed test of the theory to date. We analyse languages from the Bantu language family, using a prior geographic-phylogenetic tree of relationships to establish where and when languages were spoken. This is combined with estimates of humidity for those times and places, taken from historical climate models. We then estimate the strength of causal relationships in a causal path model, controlling for various influences of inheritance and borrowing. We find no evidence to support the previous claims that humidity affects the emergence of lexical tone. This study shows how using causal inference approaches lets us test complex causal claims about the cultural evolution of language.

Enhancing lexical tone learning for second language speakers: effects of acoustic properties in Mandarin tone perception.

Understanding the challenges faced by second language (L2) learners in lexical tone perception is crucial for effective language acquisition. This study investigates the impact of exaggerated acoustic properties on facilitating Mandarin tone learning for English speakers. Using synthesized tone stimuli, we systematically manipulated pitch contours through three key modifications: expanding the fundamental frequency (F0), increasing F0 (female voice), and extending the overall duration. Our objectives were to assess the influence of F0 expansion, higher F0, longer duration, and varied syllables on Mandarin tone learning and generalization. Participants engaged in a non-adaptive trial-by-trial tone identification task. Mixed-effects logistic regression modeling was used to analyze accuracy across learning phases, acoustic factors, and tones. Findings reveal improvements in accuracy from training to testing and generalization phases, indicating the effectiveness of perceptual training to tone perception for adult English speakers. Tone 1 emerged as the easiest to perceive, while Tone 3 posed the most challenge, consistent with established hierarchies of tonal acquisition difficulty. Analysis of acoustic factors highlighted tone-specific effects. Expanded F0 was beneficial for the identification of Tone 2 and Tone 3 but posed challenges for Tone 1 and Tone 4. Additionally, longer durations also exhibited varied effects across tones, aiding in the identification of Tone 3 and Tone 4 but hindering Tone 1 identification. The higher F0 was advantageous for Tone 2 but disadvantageous for Tone 3. Furthermore, the syllable ma facilitated the identification of Tone 1 and Tone 2 but not for Tone 3 and Tone 4. These findings enhance our understanding of the role of acoustic properties in L2 tone perception and have implications for the design of effective training programs for second language acquisition.

A Study on the Production of Mandarin Lexical Tones and Disyllabic Sequences Containing the Third Tone by Intermediate-Level Chinese Learners from Laos

A Study on the Production of Mandarin Lexical Tones and Disyllabic Sequences Containing the Third Tone by Intermediate-Level Chinese Learners from Laos

The Effect of Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation on Chinese Lexical Tone Imitation: A Single-Subject Design

Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) has been reported on its effect to reorganize the sensory neural network in the central nervous system, similar as the observations in the traditional invasive vagus nerve stimulation.

Non-native tone categorization and word learning across a spectrum of L1 tonal statuses

Abstract Adults differ in the ease with which they acquire lexical tones in a non-native language. Individual differences have been attributed to several factors, such as the role that pitch plays in a learner's L1 to signal lexical meaning (L1 tonal status), the shape of the tones to be acquired (tone types), as well as extralinguistic factors (such as musical experience and working memory). Here, we ask whether learners from a spectrum of L1 tonal statuses (Dutch, Swedish and Japanese, and Thai) differ in their tone word learning facility, whilst we simultaneously investigate the effects of tone type, and musical experience and working memory. Our findings suggest that above and beyond L1 tonal status, the strongest predictor of tone word learning was pre-lexical tone processing (measured by a tone categorization task), although the strength of the link between pre-lexical and lexical processing may be modulated by L1 tonal status.

Tonal and syllabic encoding in overt Cantonese Chinese speech production: An ERP study.

This study was conducted to investigate how syllables and lexical tones are processed in Cantonese speech production using the picture-word interference task with concurrent recording of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Cantonese-speaking participants were asked to name aloud individually presented pictures and ignore an accompanying auditory word distractor. The target and distractor either shared the same word-initial syllable with the same tone (Tonal-Syllable related), the same word-initial syllable without the same tone (Atonal-Syllable related), the same tone only (Tone alone related), or were phonologically unrelated. Participants' naming responses were faster, relative to an unrelated control, when the target and distractor shared the same tonal- or atonal-syllable but null effect was found in the Tone alone related condition. The mean ERP amplitudes (per each 100-ms time window) were subjected to stimulus-locked (i.e., time-locked to stimulus onset) and response-locked (i.e., time-locked to response onset) analyses. Significant differences between related and unrelated ERP waves were similarly observed in both Tonal-Syllable related and Atonal-Syllable related conditions in the time window of 400-500 ms post-stimulus. However, distinct ERP effects were observed in these two phonological conditions within the 500-ms pre-response period. In addition, null effects were found in the Tone alone related condition in both stimulus-locked and response-locked analyses. These results suggest that in Cantonese spoken word production, the atonal syllable of the target is retrieved first and then associated with the target lexical tone, consistent with the view that tone has an important role to play at a late stage of phonological encoding in tonal language production.