Native Chinese Speakers Research Articles

Emotional voice conversion: Theory, databases and ESD

In this paper, we first provide a review of the state-of-the-art emotional voice conversion research, and the existing emotional speech databases. We then motivate the development of a novel emotional speech database (ESD) that addresses the increasing research need. With this paper, the ESD database11https://hltsingapore.github.io/ESD/. is now made available to the research community. The ESD database consists of 350 parallel utterances spoken by 10 native English and 10 native Chinese speakers and covers 5 emotion categories (neutral, happy, angry, sad and surprise). More than 29 h of speech data were recorded in a controlled acoustic environment. The database is suitable for multi-speaker and cross-lingual emotional voice conversion studies. As case studies, we implement several state-of-the-art emotional voice conversion systems on the ESD database. This paper provides a reference study on ESD in conjunction with its release.

The impact of audio on the reading of intralingual versus interlingual subtitles: Evidence from eye movements

AbstractThis study investigated how semantically relevant auditory information might affect the reading of subtitles, and if such effects might be modulated by the concurrent video content. Thirty-four native Chinese speakers with English as their second language watched video with English subtitles in six conditions defined by manipulating the nature of the audio (Chinese/L1 audio vs. English/L2 audio vs. no audio) and the presence versus absence of video content. Global eye-movement analyses showed that participants tended to rely less on subtitles with Chinese or English audio than without audio, and the effects of audio were more pronounced in the presence of video presentation. Lexical processing of subtitles was not modulated by the audio. However, Chinese audio, which presumably obviated the need to read the subtitles, resulted in more superficial post-lexical processing of the subtitles relative to either the English or no audio. On the contrary, English audio accentuated post-lexical processing of the subtitles compared with Chinese audio or no audio, indicating that participants might use English audio to support subtitle reading (or vice versa) and thus engaged in deeper processing of the subtitles. These findings suggest that, in multimodal reading situations, eye movements are not only controlled by processing difficulties associated with properties of words (e.g., their frequency and length) but also guided by metacognitive strategies involved in monitoring comprehension and its online modulation by different information sources.

Acquisition of Korean short form negation by native Chinese and English speakers: A learner corpus-based study

This study aims to investigate L2 acquisition of Korean short form negation by Chinese-speaking and English-speaking learners. In terms of the choice and placement of negative morphemes in short form negation, whether L2 learners from different L1 backgrounds show different developmental aspects, and whether their performance improves as proficiency increases were examined based on the data from Korean Learners

Neuro-Cognitive Differences in Semantic Processing Between Native Speakers and Proficient Learners of Mandarin Chinese.

The present study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying semantic processing in Mandarin Chinese adult learners, focusing on the learners who were Indo-European language speakers with advanced levels of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging technique and a semantic judgment task to test 24 Mandarin Chinese adult learners (L2 group) and 26 Mandarin Chinese adult native speakers (L1 group) as a control group. In the task, participants were asked to indicate whether two-character pairs were related in meaning. Compared to the L1 group, the L2 group had greater activation in the bilateral occipital regions, including the fusiform gyrus and middle occipital gyrus, as well as the right superior parietal lobule. On the other hand, less activation in the bilateral temporal regions was found in the L2 group relative to the L1 group. Correlation analysis further revealed that, within the L2 group, increased activation in the left middle temporal gyrus/superior temporal gyrus (M/STG, BA 21) was correlated with higher accuracy in the semantic judgment task as well as better scores in the two vocabulary tests, the Assessment of Chinese character list for grade 3 to grade 9 (A39) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. In addition, functional connectivity analysis showed that connectivity strength between the left fusiform gyrus and left ventral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, BA 47) was modulated by the accuracy in the semantic judgment task in the L1 group. By contrast, this modulation effect was weaker in the L2 group. Taken together, our study suggests that Mandarin Chinese adult learners rely on greater recruitment of the bilateral occipital regions to process orthographic information to access the meaning of Chinese characters. Also, our correlation results provide convergent evidence that the left M/STG (BA 21) plays a crucial role in the storage of semantic knowledge for readers to access to conceptual information. Moreover, the connectivity results indicate that the left ventral pathway (left fusiform gyrus-left ventral IFG) is associated with orthographic-semantic processing in Mandarin Chinese. However, this semantic-related ventral pathway might require more time and language experience to be developed, especially for the late adult learners of Mandarin Chinese.

Sound symbolism in Chinese children’s literature

AbstractIconicity is a fundamental property of spoken and signed languages. However, quantitative analysis of sound-meaning association in Chinese has not been extensively developed, and little is known about the impact of sound symbolism in children’s literature. As sound symbolism is supposed to be a universal cognitive phenomenon, this research seeks to investigate whether iconic structures of Mandarin are embodied in native Chinese speakers’ language experience. The paper describes a case study of Chinese storybooks with the goal of testing whether phonosemantic association is prominent between name sounds and character features. A quantitative method was used to investigate the distribution of different phonological units in character denomination depending on their physical and emotional traits. The results show that phonemes and syllable combination patterns are closely related to perceivable character features. By comparing schematic mapping in Chinese with other languages, the study illuminates a cross-linguistic tendency in addition to a Chinese-specific iconic relation between sound and meaning.

Foreign Language Effect on Dishonesty.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the use of foreign languages affects individuals’ dishonesty. We recruited native Chinese speakers who can speak English as a foreign language at universities in China, and they were randomly assigned to a native language (NL) or foreign language (FL) condition. Participants in each condition were required to finish the same tasks, in which they would benefit more from lying; the tasks were administered in either Chinese or English. We conducted one die-roll game in Study 1 and one cheap-talk sender-receiver game in Study 2. In both Study 1 and Study 2, we found that the proportion of lying was significantly lower in the FL condition than in the NL condition. Our results imply that the FL effect on dishonesty may be due to the cognitive load of communicating in a FL.

Loan words and Internet expressions in Chinese linguistics

The article examines loan words and modern Internet language in Chinese, the method of their translation, the mechanism of their transformation into stable expressions of the normative language. With the development of globalization and information technology, some neologisms and new expressions appear in the Chinese language. The study of this problem allows us to show the dynamic nature of the language, to consider the interaction of language and the development of society. The goals and objectives of the study are to identify the semantic volume of some loan words in the Chinese language, to analyze the impact of translation on the linguistic picture of the world, to explore new expressions associated with information science. For the study, an associative experiment is carried out among Chinese respondents, language fragments from the media and the corpus of the modern Chinese language are analyzed. It is indicated that when entering into the Chinese linguistic composition, foreign-language words and the Internet language are often given a Chinese mentality and worldview. Different translation methods will have a certain impact on the cognition and world outlook of native Chinese speakers.

The neural dynamics associated with lexicality effect in reading single Chinese words, pseudo-words and non-words.

In previous word reading studies, lexicality has been used as a variable to examine the impacts of word form and meaning information on themany stages of word recognition process. Yet the neural dynamics associated with lexicality effect of various information processing for Chinese visual word recognition has not been well elucidated. In this study, Chinese native speakers were instructed to read Chinese disyllabic compound words, morphological legal (pseudo-words) and illegal non-words with their brain potentials recorded. Event-related potentials (ERP) results showed that N200 was related to Chinese orthographic processing, where three lexical conditions elicited comparable patterns. A semantic discrimination was found for N400 between pseudo-words/non-words and real words, which is in favor of the lexical view of the N400 effect. Further, a later ERP component P600 exhibited the difference between the non-words and pseudo-words, reflecting a re-analysis of word meaning or grammatical operation on Chinese morphological legality. Therefore, we argue that Chinese morphological information might have an independent representation (the P600 effect) in mental lexicon.

Locative phrase and descriptive discourse in L2 Chinese

AbstractThis study examines the way in which French-speaking learners of L2 Chinese construct a type of discourse calledstatic spatial description. It involves the analysis of an oral corpus collected from two groups of native speakers of Chinese and French, and two groups of learners of L2 Chinese at two proficiency levels (low and intermediate). The data collected consist of the description of a poster. The results show that linguistic devices used in Chinese and French to encode the locative phrase and its syntactic functions have an impact on the presence and placement of the locative in utterances encoding spatial localization. These properties in turn influence the way in which the informational content develops across the utterances in the discourse. There is a clear development of proficiency between the two L2 groups. However, intermediate learners are not yet able to organize information on the discourse level like native Chinese speakers do.

Talker variability in Mandarin spoken word recognition: Comparing normal and hearing-impaired listeners

During natural speech processing, talker variability is inherently embedded in the acoustic signal and may affect the speed and accuracy of processing. Prior studies have demonstrated the effect of talker variability in normal listeners. What is the effect of inter-talker variability in people with hearing impairment? This study aims to explore the question in native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, trying to compare listeners with and without hearing impairment. Participants are instructed to listen to pre-recorded pairs of Mandarin Chinese words (e.g., in English translation, happy – sad) and make responses only to the second item of each pair (e.g., sad) in a short-term priming paradigm. The speed and accuracy of the responses are measured. The fact that the pairs were spoken by either the same or different native speakers of Mandarin Chinese allows us to examine the effect of speaker voice change on the reaction time and accuracy. The hearing-impaired listeners appear to be facilitated more by the same speaker voice condition in terms of response accuracy, compared with the listeners without hearing impairment. There also seems to be more semantic facilitation to the hearing-impaired in terms of reaction time, although this effect does not seem to be modulated by talker variability.

Динамика гендерных репрезентаций в интернет-общении (на материале китайского языка)

The article describes changes in the vision of gender of the Chinese that are currently taking place due to globalization and the increased role of the feminist movement in the world. The article aims to describe words and phrases that reflect the contemporary gender vision of native Chinese speakers as well as to analyze the influence of global agenda on the formation of ideas about femininity and masculinity. The paper reviews the theoretical studies of Chinese scientists in the field of gender linguistics, determines the areas where the influence of Western theories is the most significant. The article describes the social status of men and women in three main periods: pre-imperial and imperial China, communist China in the 20th century, modern China in the 21st century. However, the main focus of the article is on the modern Chinese language, as there is a lack of studies in this field. Gender representations reflected in the Xinhua Internet Dictionary （新华 网络 语言 词 典） and the online dictionary 小鸡 词典 were selected as the research material. We selected words and set phrases containing such characters as 女 “woman” and 男 “man”, studied their description provided by vocabulary entries, reviewed gender representation in media.

非母語話者の誤用と誤訳に関する一考察 ― 中国語母語話者の中日誤訳を中心に ―

非母語話者の誤用と誤訳に関する一考察 ― 中国語母語話者の中日誤訳を中心に ―

Концепт МИР в русской и китайской языковых картинах мира

The study aims to identify semantic, linguocultural, associative components that are a part of the semantic structure of the concept WORLD in the Russian and Chinese linguistic worldviews. The study is novel in that it is the first to consider components of the concept WORLD in the Russian and Chinese linguistic worldviews at the semantic, cultural-semantic and associative-semantic levels in the comparative aspect. The article presents results of analysing set expressions, proverbs, sayings of the two languages compared, as well as reactions of the Russian and Chinese respondents to the stimulus word “world” obtained during free associative experiments, on the basis of which specificity of the concept associative-semantic perception by the Russian and Chinese native speakers was described.

The role of L1 and L2 in the acquisition of null subjects by Chinese learners of L3 Italian

ABSTRACT This study investigates the acquisition of null subjects by Mandarin Chinese native speakers (‘Chinese NSs’ hereafter), with different levels of L2 English proficiency, at initial stages of L3 Italian acquisition. The aim is to find out if, when acquiring Italian null subjects, Chinese NSs resort to their L1, which, like the L3, allows null subjects, or to the L2, that does not allow null subjects but may be perceived as typologically closer to the L3, given the shared affiliation to the Indo-European family. For this purpose, four groups of Chinese NSs all at the same stage of L3 acquisition but differing with respect to their L2 English proficiency level, were tested. The results of an acceptability judgement task showed that the lowest L2 proficiency group, in two conditions (i.e. declaratives and wh-questions), was the most accurate in rejecting overt subjects, although in the third condition (i.e. expletives) they did not perform as accurately. However, the overall high acceptance of null subjects suggests that L2 English did not act as the sole source of transfer for learners with a higher proficiency: L1 transfer seems to contribute to shaping L3 acquisition too, possibly combined with learning-environment-related factors.

Investigating Differences in Gaze and Typing Behavior Across Writing Genres

ABSTRACT Writing is one of the most common activities undertaken on a computer, and the activity of writing has been widely studied. Given that writing is an intensively cognitive process, it makes sense that the type of writing that is being produced would have an effect on the writer’s gaze and typing behaviors. However, only a few studies have explored this relationship. In this paper, we study the gaze-typing behaviors, specifically, the coordination between eye gaze and typing dynamics, of writers who are producing original articles in different genres: reminiscent, logical and creative. Our study focuses on Chinese typing, particularly via the Pinyin input method, which generates text via a two step method, and requires additional cognitive processes compared to typing in phonographic languages such as English. Our study involves 46 native Chinese speakers of varying ages from children to elderly. Our method deploys statistics- and sequence-based features to infer the mental state of the author during the writing process. The statistics-based features focus on modeling the overall gaze-typing behaviors during the process and the sequence-based features focus on the transition of the gaze-typing behaviors as the piece of writing progresses. Using a linear support-vector machine, we achieve an overall accuracy over 88% for the article-genre detection by using a leave-one-subject-out cross-validation evaluation.

Algorithmically Bypassing Censorship on Sina Weibo with Nondeterministic Homophone Substitutions

Like traditional media, social media in China is subject to censorship. However, in limited cases, activists have employed homophones of censored keywords to avoid detection by keyword matching algorithms. In this paper, we show that it is possible to scale this idea up in ways that make it difficult to defend against. Specifically, we present a non-deterministic algorithm for generating homophones that create large numbers of false positives for censors, making it difficult to locate banned conversations. In two experiments, we show that 1) homophone-transformed weibos posted to Sina Weibo remain on-site three times longer than their previously censored counterparts, and 2) native Chinese speakers can recover the original intent behind the homophone-transformed messages, with 99% of our posts understood by the majority of our participants. Finally, we find that coping with homophone transformations is likely to cost the Sina Weibo censorship apparatus an additional 15 hours of human labor per day, per censored keyword. To conclude, we reflect briefly on the opportunities presented by this algorithm to build interactive, client-side tools that promote free speech.

Automatic Geminate Insertion Algorithm for Japanese Audio Data

Generally, it is quite difficult for Japanese language learners to acquire Japanese special morae, namely, geminate, syllabic nasals and long vowels compared to independent morae. Among these three special morae, geminate is particularly difficult, and it takes much longer to fully acquire both production and perception of it. Especially for learners of Chinese native speakers, previous studies has shown that both production and perception of geminate are difficult in terms of the fact that not only no geminate is found in Chinese language, but also the phonological interaction between Japanese accent and Chinese tones. However, in the field of Japanese speech acquisition, research has not making progress because of a major problem, that is, researchers themselves manually create the acoustic experiment stimuli. Therefore, in this study, as a method to solve this problem, we propose an algorithm that automatically inserts geminate into the audio data used in Japanese speech acquisition research. This algorithm automates the insertion of geminate by performing three processes in order: mora extraction by noise removal, matching of original audio data and extracted mora, and insertion of soundless duration and geminate. The algorithm makes it possible to remove the noise, which is -50 dBFS and continues for 10ms or more, and replace it with soundless duration instead, allowing Japanese native speakers to percept it as geminate. The accuracy was equivalent as a result of comparing the data that was manually modified by a phonology researcher with the data that was generated by the algorithm. The result shows that the algorithm can be a practical solution for the automation of geminate insertion.

Linguocultural cognition manifested in spoken narratives in L2 English by native Chinese and Korean speakers

Linguocultural cognition manifested in spoken narratives in L2 English by native Chinese and Korean speakers

Second language experience influences salience of phonological units in spoken word production in the first language

Research question: Previous research suggests that the grain size of primary phonological units (PUs) in spoken word production is language-specific (e.g., phonemic segments in Germanic languages, and atonal syllables in Chinese). When the two languages of bilingual speakers have different primary PUs in their native speakers, will first language (L1) phonological processing be influenced by second language (L2) experience? Methodology: In a picture–word interference task, native Chinese speakers who spoke English as L2 were required to say aloud the predesignated L1 name of a picture while ignoring a written L1 character superimposed on the picture. The picture name shared a certain phonological component (i.e., rhyme or atonal syllable) with the distractor in the related condition but not in the unrelated condition. Data and analysis: Data of 186 participants from eight originally independent experiments were pooled. Multiple regression analyses were conducted on subject means to investigate whether the effects of rhyme relatedness and syllable relatedness on L1 naming latency were influenced by L2 self-rated proficiency, age of acquisition (AoA), and/or years of use. Trial-by-trial data were then analyzed with linear mixed-effects modeling. Findings: Both the rhyme effect and the syllable effect increased with years of L2 use, indicating that the salience of PUs in L1 spoken word production can be influenced by L2 experience. Originality: The current study adopted a chronometric approach to investigate the influence of L2 experience on phonological processing during L1 spoken word production. Importantly, multiple aspects of L2 experience (i.e., self-rated proficiency, AoA, and years of use) were examined at the same time in a relatively large sample. Implications: The current findings provide evidence for backward transfer of primary PUs in spoken word production, which demonstrates the plasticity of the phonological encoding process in bilingual speakers. These findings are discussed and compared with cross-language transfer of phonological awareness in the discussion.

Effects of Phonological Consistency and Semantic Radical Combinability on N170 and P200 in the Reading of Chinese Phonograms.

Studies have suggested that visually presented words are obligatorily decomposed into constituents that could be mapped to language representations. The present study aims to elucidate how orthographic processing of one constituent affects the other and vice versa during a word recognition task. Chinese orthographic system has characters representing syllables and meanings instead of suffixation roles, and the majority of Chinese characters are phonograms that can be further decomposed into phonetic radical and semantic radical. We propose that semantic radical combinability indexed by semantic radicals and the effect of phonological consistency indexed by phonetic radicals would interact with each other during the reading of Chinese phonograms. Twenty-six right-handed native Chinese speakers were recruited to the study. Participants were presented with phonograms divided into four conditions following their semantic radical combinability (large vs. small) and phonological consistency (high vs. low). EEG signals were recorded throughout the covert naming task. Our results show that there is an interaction effect between phonological consistency and semantic radical combinability on the right hemisphere N170 activity while reading phonograms. Semantic radical combinability influenced the right hemisphere N170 during the process of low-consistency character reading but not high-consistency character reading. On the other hand, the left hemisphere N170 revealed a more significant activity during reading high-consistency characters and was not affected by radical combinability. In addition, while low-consistency characters revealed a larger P200 than high-consistency characters, the semantic radical combinability effect on P200 was only significant when participants were reading high-consistency characters but not low-consistency characters. These results provide new information about how ERPs are involved in word recognition within the context of interaction among orthographic and phonological dimensions.