Native Chinese Speakers Research Articles

Strategic Deception in Interlanguage Pragmatics: A Comparative Study on Chinese EFL Learners and Native Speakers of American English

Strategic Deception in Interlanguage Pragmatics: A Comparative Study on Chinese EFL Learners and Native Speakers of American English

L2 English Learners Perception of English Diphthong /u/ and Chinese Pinyin (wo) /uo/ (nest) in Phonetic Contexts

Abstract: In English phonetics instruction, vowels often present challenges for second language learners. The articulation of vowel is complex and can be difficult for learners to be accurately grasped, making it hard for them to perceive the precise where English vowels are produced. Additionally, the vowel systems of English and Chinese differ significantly. Native Chinese speakers have internalized the Chinese vowel system, leading to pronunciation patterns that do not easily align with those of English. This paper examines the differences between the vowel systems of the two languages and the extent to which second language learners perceive specific vowels through a literature review. The findings suggest that the collected research on English and Chinese vowel system differences will serve as a valuable foundation for the upcoming experiment on the comparison and perception of the diphthongs /u/ and /uo/. Furthermore, the review finds that conducting experiments on the perception of diphthongs with native Chinese speakers can provide valuable insights for further development in bilingual classrooms of second language learning.

Meaning And Humor Comprehension of Chinese-English Pseudo Words Among Chinese EFL Speakers: A Conceptual Blending Perspective

Assuming that Chinese–English pseudo words (CEPWs) are humorous and have multiple meanings, this study, based on the conceptual blending theory (CBT), investigates the comprehension of meaning and humor in CEPWs for Chinese speakers learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Specifically, it aimed to answer the following questions: 1) What is the humorous effect of CEPWs as perceived by Chinese EFL speakers? 2) What is the comprehensive understanding of CEPWs among Chinese EFL speakers according to CBT? and 3) How are Chinese EFL speakers’ understanding of CEPWs and their perception of the humorous effect related? This study adopted a mixed method of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interview) approaches. It surveyed 114 native Chinese EFL speakers and interviewed 12 of them. Quantitative data were collected via a questionnaire disseminated on the online questionnaire platform wenjuan.com, gathering 114 valid responses. After collection, the quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics 20 software. The findings revealed that CEPWs are more humorous than their Chinese originals. A conceptual blending model of Chinese EFL speakers’ comprehension of CEPWs was proposed, which allows these speakers to generate numerous interpretations of CEPWs. The humor in CEPWs comes from homophony, bilingual speech, and conceptual blending, facilitated by the meaning correspondence of English words in the CEPW and context. This suggests that the incongruity between input spaces and the emergent structure of conceptual blending is involved in creating humor. CEPWs meet the criteria for puns, providing a new perspective on this phenomenon. The findings provided empirical data, based on which a model of Chinese EFL speakers’ comprehension process of CEPWs was devised, providing insights into the cognitive process behind the use of Internet language.

The perception of emotional prosody in Mandarin Chinese words and sentences

Emotional prosody refers to the ways in which the tone of voice can be modulated to convey emotions, feelings, and attitudes. Previous studies have explored the perception of emotional prosody and whether native speakers (L1) have an in-group advantage in recognizing the emotional prosody of their own cultural groups over non-native speakers. However, little is known about whether these findings in non-tonal languages can be generalized to tonal languages. Mandarin Chinese uses the tone of voice to encode word meanings in addition to emotional prosody. This study investigates the perception of emotional prosody in Mandarin Chinese using an emotion judgment task, focusing on the effects of emotion type (e.g., neutral, joy, anger, sadness) and syllable length (e.g., monosyllable, disyllable, trisyllable, and sentence). Three groups were included, consisting of 20 native Chinese speakers (native group), 20 L1-English L2-Chinese learners (second language group), and 20 native English speakers without Chinese learning experience (non-native group). The results revealed that all three groups can identify emotional prosody well above the chance level in Mandarin Chinese words and sentences. Moreover, the native group and the second language (L2) group showed an in-group advantage in recognizing emotional prosody compared to the non-native group, highlighting the impact of linguistic experience in addition to cultural backgrounds on the perception of emotional prosody. Notably, the effects of emotion type and syllable length differed across the three groups in terms of their perception of emotional prosody. The native group had difficulty identifying positive emotional prosody, whereas both the L2 group and the non-native group showed a pattern of improved accuracy as syllable length increased, with an interaction effect with emotion type.

Ancient Chinese Poem “The Song of Bride”: Features of Translation by A.A. Shtukin

The translation of A.A. Shtukin’s poem “The Song of the Bride”, which is part of the collection of ancient Chinese hymns and songs “Shijing”, is being considered. The relevance of the study is determined by the interest of Chinese researchers in the quality of translations of Chinese poetry into European languages, particularly Russian. There is noted interest from both Chinese and Russian researchers in the translation of the book “Shijing”, as it varies depending on the perception of foreign cultures. The features of A.A. Shtukin’s translation of the poem “The Song of the Bride” are highlighted in terms of the images he created and the linguistic specifics. It is pointed out that Shtukin’s translation of the poems from “Shijing” is recognized as one of the best. The analysis of the translation revealed the following characteristics: the preservation of the original work’s color through botanical metaphors, sound, and structural organization of the text. Some shortcomings in conveying the atmosphere of ancient Chinese lyricism from the perspective of native Chinese speakers who also speak Russian were also identified; the translation differs from the original in that it insufficiently conveys the atmosphere of ancient Chinese lyricism, which can be easily explained by the differences in worldviews among speakers of different languages.

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.