NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in China

Brenner Daniel S, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds Daniel Brenner of the University of Arizona to conduct a research project in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences area during the summer of 2013 at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. The project title is "Mandarin Tone Perception in Conversational and Read Speech." The host scientist is Dr. HU Fang. In Mandarin, words are distinguished not only by segments ([ba] 'to pull out' vs. [pa] 'to climb'), but also by tone, the pattern of vocal pitch overlaid on the syllable ([pa] with rising pitch, 'to climb'; [pa] with falling pitch, 'to fear'). This project describes the relationship between tones as produced in conversation to those in careful speech, and how those differences affect listeners' perception of tones in the two speech styles. In the first phase of the project, recordings are made of Mandarin speakers in conversation and reading a list of words, and the acoustics of the two kinds of tone productions will be compared. In a second phase, Mandarin-speaking subjects perform a perception task on those words, either with full acoustic information, or with a filtered version that removes segmental detail from the recordings. In this way, a measurement of the contributions of tone and segmental information to the identification of words can be made. Further understanding of tone and conversational speech enable developments in second language Mandarin pedagogy, where a great deal of emphasis is placed on learning to produce and detect tones, an endeavor that does not come easily to many American students. The details of tonal realizations are also vital for progress in human language technologies such as automatic speech recognition, where the ultimate goal is to program computers to understand naturally produced speech, as in conversation. Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, publication of the results following completion of the study will disseminate the findings widely to linguists and researchers in related fields.