Native Chinese Speakers Research Articles

Post‑recovery symptoms of infected cases after Omicron pandemic: a quick online cross-sectional study based on C19-YRSm in China

BackgroundThe post COVID-19 health condition of Chinese residents infected with Omicron is not clear after the change of epidemic prevention policies. This study aimed to clarify the epidemiology and associated factors about health status of rehabilitation patients.MethodsA quick questionnaire study based on C19-YRSm was conducted in mainland China through internet from May 1, 2023, to May 7, 2023. Chinese native speakers infected with Omicron variant agreed to participate were included. Persisting symptom and living habits were simultaneously inquired. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the associated factors.ResultsIn this study 753 individuals were included. Of whom 57.90% were males, 89.38% did not seek medical service, 99.47% recovered within less than 120 days. Breathlessness (47.68%), cognitive impairment (44.89%), Anxiety/mood changes (33.20%), pain/discomfort (32.94%), fatigue or tiredness not improved by rest (32.27%) and post-exertional malaise (30.01%) were the top reported key symptoms. Less than 10% respondents reported functional limitations. The prevalence of fever was reported greater than that of other symptoms, with dry eyes at 14.87%, appetite change at 14.34%, and hair loss at 12.22%. Middle age (OR: 2.353, 95%CI: 1.171 ~ 4.729), underlying diseases (OR: 2.293, 95%CI: 1.216 ~ 4.324), severe key symptom (OR: 6.168, 95%CI: 1.376 ~ 27.642) and at least one other symptom (OR: 1.847, 95%CI: 1.225 ~ 2.718)during the recovery were the risk factors of poor overall health after infection (current overall health score <8; 74.10%), while daily exercise in recovery period (OR: 0.457, 95%CI: 0.229 ~ 0.913), a low-fat diet (OR: 0.600, 95%CI: 0.401 ~ 0.898) and the recovery time from 2 to 4 months (OR: 0.639, 95%CI: 0.445 ~ 0.918) were the protective factors.ConclusionThis is the first time to use the C19-YRSm scale to evaluate the health status in China. The study revealed prevalence of persistent symptoms within 120 days after Omicron onset.

How to close a telephone call in Chinese – A problem for foreigners

AbstractIn this study, we examine why closing a telephone call in Chinese can trigger intercultural irritations for foreigners. We investigate such irritations by comparing ways in which learners and native speakers of Chinese end phone calls. We follow a tripartite research design anchored in speech acts and interaction. First, we administered Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) to a group of advanced European learners of Chinese and a group of native speakers of Chinese, investigating how members of these groups close telephone calls. Second, we studied two corpora of telephone closing conversations, including a Chinese and an English as lingua franca corpus. Third, we considered whether the pragmatic differences observed through our DCTs reflect broader Chinese and Western conventions of telephone closing observed through our interactional corpora, and whether the behaviour of foreign speakers of Chinese may have been influenced by pragmatic transfer. Through the research outcomes we interpret the above-mentioned intercultural irritations.

Orthographic character complexity modulates dynamic neural activity in skilled handwriting.

Handwriting is an outstanding case of a highly complex and efficient fine motor skill. However, little is known about its neural underpinnings during continuous handwriting production. In the present study, we examined the effects of orthographic character complexity (i.e. the stroke number of a Chinese character) on both neural and behavioural activities during an EEG-based naturalistic fluent sentence-handwriting task from 102 adult Chinese native speakers. For each written character, the interval between finishing the preceding character and its onset (inter-character interval) as well as the amplitudes of the onset-synchronized event-related potential (ERP) in pre- and post-onset time windows was defined as dependent variables. The effects of character complexity and other confounding factors were analysed with linear mixed models. Character complexity increased the inter-character interval and significantly affected ERP amplitudes in both pre- and post-onset time windows. The ERP pattern in the pre-event time window exhibited a dipole-like activation in the left motor cortex, and its amplitude increased with character complexity in line with the documented relationship between the lateralized readiness potential and motor complexity. This study demonstrates the feasibility of studying neurocognitive processes in complex naturalistic motor tasks and extends our knowledge about the dynamic pattern of handwriting-related neural activities.

Morphological encoding in language production: Electrophysiological evidence from Mandarin Chinese compound words.

This study investigates the role of morphology during speech planning in Mandarin Chinese. In a long-lag priming experiment, thirty-two Mandarin Chinese native speakers were asked to name target pictures (e.g., "" /shan1/ "mountain"). The design involved pictures referring to morpheme-related compound words (e.g., "" /shan1yang2/ "goat") sharing a morpheme with the first (e.g., "" /shan1/ "mountain") or the second position of the targets (e.g., /nao3/ "brain" with prime /dian4nao3/ "computer"), as well as unrelated control items. Behavioral and electrophysiological data were collected. Interestingly, the behavioral results went against earlier findings in Indo-European languages, showing that the target picture naming was not facilitated by morphologically related primes. This suggests no morphological priming for individual constituents in producing Mandarin Chinese disyllabic compound words. However, targets in the morpheme-related word condition did elicit a reduced N400 compared with targets in the morpheme-unrelated condition for the first position overlap in the ERP analyses but not for the second, suggesting automatic activation of the first individual constituent in noun compound production. Implications of these findings are discussed.

A Corpus-Based Multifactorial Study of Help/help to Alternation in Learners’ Language: From the Perspective of Probabilistic Grammar

This corpus-based multifactorial study delves deeper into the well-known alternation between bare and full infinitive complements, specifically regarding the help concordances. It extends the line of research to learners’ language productions with a focus on comparing and contrasting the probabilistic grammatical knowledge reflected in the help/ help to choices, which are constrained by a complex network of factors. Regression modeling indicates that constraints such as the horror aequi and certain morphological forms of the verb help are comparatively stable among groups of Chinese English language learners and native English speakers. Therefore, the principle of cognitive complexity and the avoidance strategy fueling infinitive variations are further tested. While the object typology differs in effect strength, it also prompts consideration of cultural influences on the part of Chinese English learners. In addition, two different patterns of interaction effects are explored in each dataset, which implies that learners’ language choice is usage-based, determined by an unconscious assessment of multiple clues that are learned from language input and shaped by language experiences.

Audiovisual Integration Decreases Inhibition of Return in Children With ADHD

Objectives: Previous studies have widely demonstrated that inhibition of return (IOR) with audiovisual targets decreases due to audiovisual integration (AVI). It is currently unclear, however, whether the impaired AVI in children with ADHD has effects on IOR. The present study used the cue-target paradigm to explore differences between the IOR of audiovisual targets and the IOR of visual targets in ADHD and typically developing (TD) children. Method: A total of 81 native Chinese speakers aged 6 to 13 years were recruited, including 38 children with ADHD and 43 age- and sex-matched TD children. Results: The results showed that there was a smaller magnitude of IOR with audiovisual targets as compared with visual targets in the two groups. Importantly, the reduction of IOR in audiovisual conditions was significantly smaller in children with ADHD than in children with TD. Race model analyses further confirmed that differences in IOR between ADHD and TD are due to deficits of audiovisual integration in ADHD. Conclusion: The results indicated that children with ADHD have impaired audiovisual integration, which has a minimal impact on IOR.

Could L1 intonation patterns be applied in teaching Mandarin tones to atonal learners of Chinese? – An acoustic phonetic study

Abstract This study focuses on the acoustic comparison of Mandarin Chinese lexical tones and Hungarian monosyllabic intonation patterns. The aim of this experiment was to explore whether atonal L1 intonation patterns are applicable in teaching tones in L2 Mandarin Chinese, and also to investigate to what extent atonal and tonal monosyllabic contours differ. Mandarin Chinese rising Tone 2 is compared to two corresponding Hungarian rising contours: i) monosyllabic interrogative contour and ii) the rising phase of the f 0 pattern in alternative questions. Mandarin Chinese falling Tone 4 is likewise compared to Hungarian i) declarative and ii) imperative f 0 curves. We compared Mandarin Chinese and Hungarian native speakers’ production regarding five acoustic features. Results show that Mandarin Chinese Tone 2 is articulated with longer duration, and a more concave f 0 curve compared to Hungarian rising intonation patterns. Mandarin Chinese Tone 4, on the other hand, was found to differ from the Hungarian imperative contour only in terms of the f 0 curve shape, since Tone 4 featured a more domed curve. Hungarian declaratives are characterized by a more concave f 0 pattern, realized in a lower f 0 range compared to Tone 4. The results of this study may contribute to the proper application of atonal intonation patterns in L2 teaching of Mandarin Chinese through the differences and similarities between atonal and tonal monosyllabic f 0 patterns.

Negative transfers in phonological systems of native Chinese speakers when learning Japanese

Negative transfers in phonological systems of native Chinese speakers when learning Japanese

A Review of Research on Mother Tongue Transfer During English as a Second Language Acquisition

In the process of second language acquisition, learners are often influenced by native language transfer. The effect can be both positive and negative. That is, the impact of positive and negative migrations. This paper is aimed at learners who speak English as a second language. This paper mainly summarizes the influence of mother tongue transfer on grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Mother tongue transfer may be challenging for English as a second language learners in terms of grammatical morphological changes, word order, virtual word functions, and syntactic component correspondence. The sentence structure in English is more complex than in Chinese. This makes it easy for learners to have difficulties in mastering English tenses, voice, singular and plural, etc. The second is the impact of native language transfer on English pronunciation. Native Chinese speakers are influenced by Chinese tones when learning English pronunciation. This results in a lack of fluency and accuracy in pronunciation. Finally, there is the impact of mother tongue transfer on English vocabulary. Since each language will have similarities, it indirectly enriches the vocabulary of the second language, and it is faster for us to learn and memorize. Learners should be aware to avoid the adverse effects of negative transfer of mother tongue.

Structural and sequential regularities modulate phrase-rate neural tracking

Electrophysiological brain activity has been shown to synchronize with the quasi-regular repetition of grammatical phrases in connected speech—so-called phrase-rate neural tracking. Current debate centers around whether this phenomenon is best explained in terms of the syntactic properties of phrases or in terms of syntax-external information, such as the sequential repetition of parts of speech. As these two factors were confounded in previous studies, much of the literature is compatible with both accounts. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to determine if and when the brain is sensitive to both types of information. Twenty native speakers of Mandarin Chinese listened to isochronously presented streams of monosyllabic words, which contained either grammatical two-word phrases (e.g., catch fish, sell house) or non-grammatical word combinations (e.g., full lend, bread far). Within the grammatical conditions, we varied two structural factors: the position of the head of each phrase and the type of attachment. Within the non-grammatical conditions, we varied the consistency with which parts of speech were repeated. Tracking was quantified through evoked power and inter-trial phase coherence, both derived from the frequency-domain representation of EEG responses. As expected, neural tracking at the phrase rate was stronger in grammatical sequences than in non-grammatical sequences without syntactic structure. Moreover, it was modulated by both attachment type and head position, revealing the structure-sensitivity of phrase-rate tracking. We additionally found that the brain tracks the repetition of parts of speech in non-grammatical sequences. These data provide an integrative perspective on the current debate about neural tracking effects, revealing that the brain utilizes regularities computed over multiple levels of linguistic representation in guiding rhythmic computation.

How L2 Learners Process Different Means of Time Encoding in a Tenseless Language: An ERP Study of Mandarin.

In the past, research on the cognitive neural mechanism of second language (L2) learners' processing time information has focused on Indo-European languages. It has also focused on the temporal category expressed by morphological changes. However, there has been a lack of research on L2 learners' various time coding means, especially for Mandarin, which lacks morphological changes. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the cognitive neural mechanism of L2 learners with native Indonesian background in processing two time coding means (time adverbs and aspect markers) in Chinese. Indonesian has time adverb encoding time information similar to that of Chinese, but there are no aspect markers similar to Chinese in Indonesian. We measured ERPs time locked to the time adverb " (cengjing)" and the aspect marker "verb + (verb + guo)" in two different conditions, i.e., a control condition (the correct sentence) and a temporal information violation. The experimental results showed that the native speaker group induced the biphasic N400-P600 effect under the condition of time adverb violation, and induced P600 under the condition of the aspect marker "verb + (verb + guo)" violation. Indonesian L2 learners of Chinese only elicited P600 for the violation of time adverbs, and there was no statistically significant N400 similar to that of Chinese native speakers. In the case of aspect marker violation, we observed no significant ERPs component for the Indonesian L2 learners of Chinese. Both groups of subjects induced elicited a widely distributed and sustained negativity on the post-critical words after "verb + (verb + guo)" and "(cengjing)". This showed that the neural mechanism of Indonesian L2 learners of Chinese processing Chinese time coding differs from that of Chinese native speakers.

Semantic effects on the perception of emotional prosody in native and non-native Chinese speakers

ABSTRACT While previous research has found an in-group advantage (IGA) favouring native speakers in emotional prosody perception over non-native speakers, the effects of semantics on emotional prosody perception remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of semantics on emotional prosody perception in Chinese words and sentences for native and non-native Chinese speakers. The critical manipulation was the congruence of prosodic (positive, negative) and semantic (positive, negative, and neutral) valence. Participants listened to a series of audio clips and judged whether the emotional prosody was positive or negative for each utterance. The results revealed an IGA effect: native speakers perceived emotional prosody more accurately and quickly than non-native speakers in Chinese words and sentences. Furthermore, a semantic congruence effect was observed in Chinese words, where both native and non-native speakers recognised emotional prosody more accurately in the semantic-prosody congruent condition than in the incongruent condition. However, in Chinese sentences, this congruence effect was only present for non-native speakers. Additionally, the IGA effect and semantic congruence effect on emotional prosody perception were influenced by prosody valence. These findings illuminate the role of semantics in emotional prosody perception, highlighting perceptual differences between native and non-native Chinese speakers.

Examining the role of distributional information and structural types in multiword sequence processing by Chinese preschool children

Abstract Multiword sequences (MWSs) are units between words and sentences, which can help people to achieve native-like proficiency in a language. However, the extent to which Chinese native (L1) speakers, especially preschool children in the midst of language development, comprehend and process MWSs remains uncertain. While previous research has primarily focused on the distributional properties of MWSs, whether Chinese preschool children exhibit sensitivity to the distributional information of MWSs requires further examination. In addition, the potential influence of structural types on such sensitivity has received limited attention. This study examined Chinese preschool children’s sensitivity to distributional information and structural types of MWSs when processing Mandarin MWSs. Participants performed an imitating-production task. Linear mixed-effects models revealed that children were sensitive to two types of distributional information of MWSs: MWS frequency and MWS contingency. Intriguingly, no evidence was found to suggest sensitivity to the structural types of MWSs. Furthermore, the findings demonstrated not only the continuous effects of MWS frequency and contingency but also an interaction between these two factors. This study thus indicates that during the processing of MWSs, the performance of Chinese preschool children is influenced by the distributional information of MWSs while remaining unaffected by structural types.

Syntactic and typological properties of constrained language: A study based on dependency treebanks of translated English and non-native English

AbstractTo explore if translation-intrinsic features are apparent in other types of bilingualism-influenced constrained language use such as non-native production, this study approaches syntactic and typological properties of constrained English translated from Chinese and written by native Chinese speakers via two cognitively-motivated dependency metrics, viz. mean dependency distance (MDD) and dependency direction (DDir). Results of this study show that translated English (both L1 and L2) and non-native English differ from the non-constrained native English in a similar way yet to a slightly different extent, but not from each other in both indicators. Syntactically, bilingually-constrained varieties exhibit reduced syntactic complexity with shorter MDDs, suggesting a simplification tendency. Typologically, cross-linguistic influences are detected in constrained varieties for being more head-final in word-order primed by the source or native language Chinese. Surprisingly, it seems that language directionality affects, albeit marginally, the affinity between constrained varieties, with non-native English being more syntactically and typologically similar to translated English from L1 than from L2.

Native language advantage in electrical brain responses to speech sound changes in passive and active listening condition

It is not clear whether the brain can detect changes in native and non-native speech sounds in both unattended and attended conditions, but this information would be important to understand the nature of potential native language advantage in speech perception. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) for changes in duration and in Chinese lexical tone in a repeated vowel /a/ in native speakers of Finnish and Chinese in passive and active listening conditions. ERP amplitudes reflecting deviance detection (mismatch negativity; MMN and N2b) and attentional shifts towards changes in speech sounds (P3a and P3b) were investigated. In the passive listening condition, duration changes elicited increased amplitude in the MMN latency window for both standard and deviant sounds in the Finnish speakers compared to the Chinese speakers, but no group differences were observed for P3a. In passive listening to lexical tones, P3a was increased in amplitude for both standard and deviant stimuli in Chinese speakers compared to Finnish speakers, but the groups did not differ in MMN. In active listening, both tone and duration changes elicited N2b and P3b, but the groups differed only in pattern of results for the deviant type. The results thus suggest an overall increased sensitivity to native speech sounds, especially in passive listening, while the mechanisms of change detection and attentional shifting seem to work well for both native and non-native speech sounds in the attentive mode.

How Second Language English Learning Enhances Chinese Native Speakers‘ Linguistic Cognitive Skills

How Second Language English Learning Enhances Chinese Native Speakers‘ Linguistic Cognitive Skills

Insertional code-switching as interactional resource in Mandarin–English bilingual conversation

Aims and Objectives: This study investigates the interactional relevance of insertional code-switching, that is, insertion of other-language words/phrases, in Mandarin–English bilingual conversation. It focuses on a next speaker’s (dis)alignment with an insertion in an adjacency pair and its import to the ongoing interaction. Methodology: This study adopts the framework of conversation analysis, which seeks to describe the underlying organization of talk-in-interaction. It features analyses warranted by techniques and signals in conversation that are demonstrably relevant to conversation participants. Data and Analysis: The data come from CallFriend Mandarin Corpus. Speakers are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese who resided in the United States at the time of recording. First, all instances of insertional code-switching were extracted with the extended context, filtering out those not occurring in an adjacency pair. Next, sequential analysis was conducted to examine the interactional import of a next speaker’s alignment and disalignment, respectively, when insertional code-switching occurs in an adjacency pair. Findings: This study discovers that a next speaker’s alignment with an insertion is sequentially preferred over disalignment. When different language choice over the same word occurs, speakers orient to it as problematic and then repair it, such that, alignment is achieved. Disalignment is used to claim the current speaker’s more authoritative status in the matter concerned. Originality: A large bulk of literature on insertional code-switching has focused on its syntactic constraints and semantic conditions; its interactional functions in bilingual conversation have not received as much attention. This study reveals that insertional code-switching works as an extra resource for bilingual speakers to achieve interactional alignment. Significance: This study challenges the view that insertional code-switching is not sequentially implicative by showing that it does place sequential constraints on the next speaker. It further argues that such sequential implicativeness can be exploited to establish finely calibrated alignment and index epistemic status.

Does meaningful background speech modulate predictability effects during Chinese reading?

ABSTRACT Previous research indicates that background speech disrupts reading comprehension processes, but it remains unclear whether the disruption derives from semantic or phonological speech properties, and whether it affects early lexical processing or later sentence integration. Native Chinese speaking participants read sentences containing high- or low-predictability words under meaningful Chinese speech, meaningless Uyghur speech or silence conditions. Results showed that Chinese but not Uyghur speech produced increased total fixations compared to reading in silence, suggesting disruption was semantic in nature. While a standard predictability effect was comparable across background speech conditions in target word analyses, this effect disappeared in the Chinese speech condition in later measures and regions. The findings suggest that Chinese background speech may delay higher order (post-lexical) processing associated with sentence integration during reading, with implications for the Interference-by-Process hypothesis.

Overcoming Fractures of Cross-Cultural Understanding: Modern Chinese Knowledge Production on the Arab World

Despite the long history of Chinese-Arab interactions since the seventh century, modern Chinese scholarship on the Arab world has a much shorter story. The global historical context that led to such a situation is the Western dominance in knowledge production. Most Chinese scholars research on issues related to the West and/or China-Western interactions. Only a small proportion of researchers cast their eyes on the “other East”—the Arab world. Consequently, Arab/Arabic studies occupies a marginal space in Chinese academies. In addition, although Edward Said had fiercely argued more than forty years ago in Orientalism that subtle but persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arab-Islamic peoples and their culture perpetrates Western misunderstanding about the region, such biased representations were sometimes uncritically transferred by Chinese scholars when they were acquiring knowledge about the region via translations of Orientalist accounts written in English. Another major obstacle is the inherent linguistic and orthographic difficulties involved. Although some researchers have made great endeavors to overcome such challenges, most publish only in Chinese. As a result, their findings are not widely known. This article, therefore, scrutinizes and contextualizes modern Chinese scholarship on the Arab world in order to introduce it to a wider international audience, especially for those who are keenly observing the increasing Chinese-Arab engagements in the twenty-first century. In addition to providing synoptic overviews of major institutions, scholars, and their representative works, the article also critically analyzes the historical contexts that led to the initial formation, subsequent divergent developments in Chinese-language academies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and the present challenges of the respective state of the fields. I argue that due to bigger population, larger geographical size, and more government funding, Arab/Arabic studies in mainland China is more developed than that in Taiwan, though scholars based on the mainland are facing more pressure on censorship and self-censorship. Both fields, however, were pioneered by the same group of Chinese Hui Muslim scholars who went to study at al-Azhar University in Egypt in the 1930s and the 1940s, not unlike cosmopolitan Muslims around the world at the time who traveled to Cairo for multiple and complex reasons. When they returned, institutionalizing Arab/Arabic-Islamic studies in Chinese academies became one of their most visible and long-lasting legacies. Contingencies in their lives, mainly job opportunities upon graduation, played an important role in their later bifurcated career trajectories. The process during which these Hui Azharites ceased to be “cosmopolitan Muslims” and instead became “Chinese Arabists” reflects an important transformation in Chinese-Arab interactions during the Cold War politics. Later generations of scholars developed systematic pedagogies on teaching Arabic to native Chinese speakers by publishing Arabic-Chinese dictionaries as well as textbooks and grammar books. Their role as cross-cultural intermediaries is significant and widely impactful. These little-known scholars deserve to be recognized for their intellectual pursuits.

THE ROLE OF L1 PROSODY IN L2 VOWEL DURATION PRODUCTION: EVIDENCE FROM ASIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

The pre-fortis clipping pattern refers to vowels being shorter before voiceless consonants compared to vowels before voiced consonants. This study examined whether first-language (L1) prosodic properties affect the production of this vowel duration pattern in second-language (L2) English speech. Native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese with varying English proficiency participated in a production experiment. Results showed that while speakers exhibited some pre-fortis clipping, there were no significant vowel lengthening patterns. Additional analysis revealed subtle differences based on the L1 prosody type. Native Mandarin and Vietnamese speakers, with lexical tone, had similar duration ratios. However, native Korean speakers, with no tone, showed less distinction in vowel duration by consonant voicing. Japanese speakers, with pitch accents, fell in the middle. The findings provide limited evidence that L1 prosody affects L2 vowel duration production. The results have implications for theories of L2 speech acquisition as well as pedagogical techniques when teaching English vowels.&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Article visualizations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/-counters-/soc/0711/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;