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Piot L, Chen H, Picaud A, Dos Santos M, Granjon L, Luo Z, To AWH, Lai RY, Cheung H, Nazzi T. Tonal interference in word learning? A comparison of Cantonese and French. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 242:105883. [PMID: 38412568 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105883] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2023] [Revised: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 01/23/2024] [Indexed: 02/29/2024]
Abstract
Most languages of the world use lexical tones to contrast words. Thus, understanding how individuals process tones when learning new words is fundamental for a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying word learning. The current study asked how tonal information is integrated during word learning. We investigated whether variability in tonal information during learning can interfere with the learning of new words and whether this is language and age dependent. Cantonese- and French-learning 30-month-olds (N = 97) and Cantonese- and French-speaking adults (N = 50) were tested with an eye-tracking task on their ability to learn phonetically different pairs of novel words in two learning conditions: a 1-tone condition in which each object was named with a single label and a 3-tone condition in which each object was named with three different labels varying in tone. We predicted learning in all groups in the 1-tone condition. For the 3-tone condition, because tones are part of the phonological system of Cantonese but not of French, we expected the Cantonese groups to either fail (toddlers) or show lower performance than in the 1-tone condition (adults), whereas the French groups might show less sensitivity to this manipulation. The results show that all participants learned in the 1-tone condition and were sensitive to tone variation to some extent. Learning in the 3-tone condition was impeded in both groups of toddlers. We argue that tonal interference in word learning likely comes from the phonological level in the Cantonese groups and from the acoustic level in the French groups.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonardo Piot
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université Paris Cité, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France; Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - Hui Chen
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université Paris Cité, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France
| | - Anthony Picaud
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université Paris Cité, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France
| | - Maxine Dos Santos
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université Paris Cité, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France
| | - Lionel Granjon
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université Paris Cité, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France
| | - Zili Luo
- The Education University of Hong Kong, Ting Kok, Hong Kong
| | | | - Regine Y Lai
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
| | - Hintat Cheung
- The Education University of Hong Kong, Ting Kok, Hong Kong; Asia University, Taichung City, 413, Taiwan
| | - Thierry Nazzi
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université Paris Cité, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France.
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Wong AMY, Au CWS, Chan A, Momenian M. A comparison of learning and retention of a syntactic construction between Cantonese-speaking children with and without DLD in a priming task. Brain Lang 2024; 251:105404. [PMID: 38513427 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2024.105404] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2023] [Revised: 03/01/2024] [Accepted: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 03/23/2024]
Abstract
Procedural circuit Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) predicts problems with learning and retention of grammar. Twenty 7- to 9-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with DLD and their typically developing (TD) age peers participated in a syntactic priming task that was given in two sessions one week apart. Production of Indirect Object Relative Clause (IORC) was tested using a probe test before and after the priming task, and one week later. The study involved two cycles of learning and retention, and two levels of prior knowledge. Bayesian linear mixed effects modelling was used for data analysis. Children with DLD learned, and possibly retained, IORC less well than TD children after age, working memory and general grammatical knowledge were controlled for. No interaction effects were significant, meaning that cycle and prior knowledge affected both groups similarly in learning and retention. Results were discussed in relation to PDH and the Complementary Learning Systems Theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anita M-Y Wong
- Faculty of Medicine & Health, The University of Sydney, Australia.
| | - Cecilia W-S Au
- Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
| | - Angel Chan
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong; Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong; The Hong Kong Polytechnic University-Peking University Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics, Hong Kong
| | - Mohammad Momenian
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong; Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
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Wong AMY, Sou HHI, Ip LHT, Chiu CHK, Au CWS. Grammar intervention using graduated input type variation (GITV) for pre-primary children: A single-case experimental design study. Int J Speech Lang Pathol 2024:1-13. [PMID: 38520172 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2024.2320118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/25/2024]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study examined the early efficacy of a new theory-driven principle of grammar intervention, graduated input type variation (GITV). METHOD Three Cantonese-speaking children, aged between 4;01 and 5;10, with oral language difficulties participated in this single baseline within-participant single case experimental study. The children received a total of 300 teaching episodes of the target serial verb construction via focused stimulation and recast over 10 30- to 45-minute sessions. The 30 exemplars of the target included low type variation of the verbs in each of the first five sessions, followed by high type variation in the remaining sessions. RESULT Visual analysis revealed that all children improved their performance in the target construction but not the control vocabulary in the probes, suggesting a treatment effect. Maintenance of treatment effects was also observed in all children. Positive results in across-behaviour generalisation to the untrained construction were observed in all children. Generalisation to other less structured linguistic contexts and to the narrative retell discourse context was minimal and observed in one child only. CONCLUSION Preliminary evidence suggested early efficacy of GITV as a principle for grammar intervention. Modifications in the research methodology are recommended for future studies involving children with developmental language disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anita M-Y Wong
- Faculty of Health and Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Hannah H-I Sou
- Department of Education Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
| | - Lexi H-T Ip
- Tsung Tsin Missions Schools, Hong Kong, China
| | | | - Cecila W-S Au
- Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
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Yu ACL, McAllister R, Mularoni N, To CKS. Brief Report: Atypical Temporal Sensitivity in Coarticulation in Autism: Evidence from Sibilant-Vowel Interaction in Cantonese. J Autism Dev Disord 2024:10.1007/s10803-024-06258-w. [PMID: 38431693 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-024-06258-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/19/2024] [Indexed: 03/05/2024]
Abstract
PURPOSE Atypicalities in the prosodic aspects of speech are commonly considered in clinical assessments of autism. While there is an increasing number of studies using objective measures to assess prosodic deficits, such studies have primarily focused on the intonational and rhythmic aspects of prosody. Little is known about prosodic deficits that are reflected at the segmental level, despite the strong connection between prosody and segmental realization. This study examines the nature of sibilant-vowel coarticulation among male adult native speakers of Cantonese with autism and those without. METHODS Fifteen Cantonese-speaking autistic (ASD) adults (mean age = 25 years) and 23 neuro-typical (NT) adults (mean age = 20 years) participated. Each participant read aloud 42 syllables with a sibilant onset in carrier phrase. Spectral means and variance, skewness and kurtosis were measured, and regressed by vocalic rounding (rounded vs. unrounded), cohort (ASD vs. NT), sibilant duration, and articulation rate. RESULTS While neurotypical participants exhibit sibilant-vowel coarticulation that are sensitive to variation in sibilant duration, autistic participants show no sensitivity to segmental temporal changes. CONCLUSION These findings point to the potential for atypicalities in prosody-segment interaction as an important characteristic of autistic speech.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Carol K S To
- The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
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Tsui FPY, Wong SSC, Chan TCW, Lee Y, Cheung CW. A validation study of the Cantonese Chinese version of short form McGill pain questionnaire 2 in Cantonese-speaking patients with chronic pain in Hong Kong. Pain Pract 2024; 24:449-457. [PMID: 37975327 DOI: 10.1111/papr.13319] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The study tests the reliability and validity of the Cantonese Chinese version of Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire 2 (SF-MPQ-2-CC). METHODS The original Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ-2) was translated into Cantonese Chinese version. Cantonese-speaking chronic pain patients from three pain centers in Hong Kong were recruited and asked to complete SF-MPQ-2-CC, validated Chinese versions of Identification Pain questionnaire (ID Pain), Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), and Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) for evaluation of convergent and divergent validity, 2 weeks apart for evaluation of internal consistency. RESULTS A total of 333 and 197 participants completed the first and second set of questionnaires, respectively. SF-MPQ-2-CC was shown to have excellent internal consistency, with an overall Cronbach's alpha value of 0.933. The overall correlation coefficient was 0.875 that shows good test-retest reliability. Construct validity was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, where a seconder-order factor model demonstrated a good fit with our data (χ2 = 826.51, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.908, RMSEA = 0.097; SRMR = 0.063; error terms adjusted). SF-MPQ-2-CC also showed good convergent validity with Chinese versions of ID Pain (neuropathic pain) and PCS (continuous pain), and divergent validity was shown by a negative correlation with Chinese version of SF-36. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrated that SF-MPQ-2-CC is a valid and reliable pain assessment tool for Cantonese-speaking patients in Hong Kong with a wide range of chronic pain conditions. It also helps to identify the presence of neuropathic pain and negative pain cognition among respondents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fiona Pui Yee Tsui
- Department of Anaesthesia, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital, Chai Wan, Hong Kong
| | - Stanley Sau Ching Wong
- Department of Anaesthesiology, School of Clinical Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
| | | | - Yvonne Lee
- Department of Anaesthesiology, School of Clinical Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
| | - Chi Wai Cheung
- Department of Anaesthesiology, School of Clinical Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
- Department of Anaesthesiology, Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, Happy Valley, Hong Kong
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Zhong J, Huang W, Kang K, Duñabeitia JA, Pliatsikas C, Zhang H. Standardizing norms for 1286 colored pictures in Cantonese. Behav Res Methods 2024:10.3758/s13428-024-02362-y. [PMID: 38379116 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-024-02362-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 02/22/2024]
Abstract
This study established psycholinguistic norms in Cantonese for a set of 1286 colored pictures sourced from several picture databases, including 750 colored line drawings from MultiPic (Duñabeitia et al., 2018) and 536 photographs selected for McRae et al. (2005) concepts. The pictures underwent rigorous normalization processes. We provided picture characteristics including name and concept agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, and frequency of modal responses. Through correlational analyses, we observed strong interrelationships among these variables. We also compared the current Cantonese norming to other languages and demonstrated similarity and variations among different languages. Additionally, we embraced the multilingual diversity within the current sample, and found that higher Cantonese proficiency but lower non-native language proficiency were associated with better spoken picture naming. Last but not least, we validated the predictive power of normed variables calculated from typed responses to spoken picture naming, and the consistency between typed and spoken responses. The present norming provides a timely and valuable alternative for researchers in the field of psycholinguistics, especially those studying Cantonese production and lexical retrieval. All raw data, analysis scripts, and final norming results are available online as psycholinguistic norms for Cantonese in the following link at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/dz9j6/?view_only=a452d8a56c92430b9dedf21ac26b1bc1 .
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Zhong
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - Weike Huang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - Keyi Kang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - Jon Andoni Duñabeitia
- Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición (CINC), Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain
- UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - Christos Pliatsikas
- Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición (CINC), Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Haoyun Zhang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China.
- Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China.
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Fu Z, Hsu YC, Chan CS, Lau CM, Liu J, Yip PSF. Efficacy of ChatGPT in Cantonese Sentiment Analysis: Comparative Study. J Med Internet Res 2024; 26:e51069. [PMID: 38289662 PMCID: PMC10865189 DOI: 10.2196/51069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Revised: 10/24/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 02/01/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Sentiment analysis is a significant yet difficult task in natural language processing. The linguistic peculiarities of Cantonese, including its high similarity with Standard Chinese, its grammatical and lexical uniqueness, and its colloquialism and multilingualism, make it different from other languages and pose additional challenges to sentiment analysis. Recent advances in models such as ChatGPT offer potential viable solutions. OBJECTIVE This study investigated the efficacy of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in Cantonese sentiment analysis in the context of web-based counseling and compared their performance with other mainstream methods, including lexicon-based methods and machine learning approaches. METHODS We analyzed transcripts from a web-based, text-based counseling service in Hong Kong, including a total of 131 individual counseling sessions and 6169 messages between counselors and help-seekers. First, a codebook was developed for human annotation. A simple prompt ("Is the sentiment of this Cantonese text positive, neutral, or negative? Respond with the sentiment label only.") was then given to GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to label each message's sentiment. GPT-3.5 and GPT-4's performance was compared with a lexicon-based method and 3 state-of-the-art models, including linear regression, support vector machines, and long short-term memory neural networks. RESULTS Our findings revealed ChatGPT's remarkable accuracy in sentiment classification, with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, respectively, achieving 92.1% (5682/6169) and 95.3% (5880/6169) accuracy in identifying positive, neutral, and negative sentiment, thereby outperforming the traditional lexicon-based method, which had an accuracy of 37.2% (2295/6169), and the 3 machine learning models, which had accuracies ranging from 66% (4072/6169) to 70.9% (4374/6169). CONCLUSIONS Among many text analysis techniques, ChatGPT demonstrates superior accuracy and emerges as a promising tool for Cantonese sentiment analysis. This study also highlights ChatGPT's applicability in real-world scenarios, such as monitoring the quality of text-based counseling services and detecting message-level sentiments in vivo. The insights derived from this study pave the way for further exploration into the capabilities of ChatGPT in the context of underresourced languages and specialized domains like psychotherapy and natural language processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ziru Fu
- The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
| | - Yu Cheng Hsu
- The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
| | - Christian S Chan
- Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
- Department of Psychology and Linguistics, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Chaak Ming Lau
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
| | - Joyce Liu
- The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
| | - Paul Siu Fai Yip
- The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
- Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China (Hong Kong)
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Alderete J. Simon Fraser University Speech Error Database (SFUSED) Cantonese: Methods, design, and usage. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1270433. [PMID: 38333059 PMCID: PMC10851145 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1270433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2023] [Accepted: 01/08/2024] [Indexed: 02/10/2024] Open
Abstract
The Simon Fraser University Speech Error Database (SFUSED) is a multi-purpose database of speech errors based in audio recordings. The motivation for SFUSED Cantonese, a component of this database, is to create a linguistically rich data set for exploring language production processes in Cantonese, an under-studied language. We describe in detail the methods used to collect, analyze, and explore the database, including details of team workflows, time budgets, data quality, and explicit linguistic and processing assumptions. In addition to showing how to use the database, this account supports future research with a template for investigating additional under-studied languages, and it gives fresh perspective on the benefits and drawbacks of collecting speech error data from spontaneous speech. All of the data and supporting materials are available as open access data sets.
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Affiliation(s)
- John Alderete
- Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
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Bakhtiar M. Manifestation of speech disfluencies in preschool Cantonese-English speaking bilingual children. Clin Linguist Phon 2024:1-17. [PMID: 38272017 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2024.2305645] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2023] [Accepted: 01/10/2024] [Indexed: 01/27/2024]
Abstract
Stuttering is characterised by disruptions in speech fluency that normally emerges between the ages of 2 to 5 when children start to formulate sentences. Current stuttering identification in children is largely based on speech disfluency criteria (>3% stuttering-like disfluencies, SLDs) developed for monolingual English-speaking children. Research in a Western language context shows that application of the criteria for monolingual to bilingual children may result in false positive diagnosis of stuttering. The applicability of these criteria to children speaking languages typologically distinct from English remains unclear. This preliminary study focused on bilingual Cantonese-English-speaking children, aiming to explore the manifestations of the speech disfluencies in Cantonese (a syllable-timed language) and English (a stress-timed language) while accounting for language dominance/proficiency and speaking task. Nineteen typically fluent Cantonese-English bilingual preschoolers were recruited for this study and their speech samples were collected across different speaking tasks (i.e. conversation and narration), and languages (i.e. Cantonese and English). The types and frequency of speech disfluencies were compared across both languages and the speaking tasks. The results showed that between 21-68% of children showed higher than 3% SLDs across different languages and speaking tasks. Linear mixed-effect analysis revealed that the prevalence of SLDs is higher in English (less dominant language) than Cantonese (more dominant language), and the prevalence is also higher in narration than conversation. These findings suggest the need for tailored stuttering identification criteria for bilingual children speaking diverse languages and emphasise the importance of considering language dominance/proficiency and speaking task when assessing stuttering in bilingual populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mehdi Bakhtiar
- Speech and Neuromodulation Laboratory, Unit of Human Communication, Learning and Development, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Tat Cheung H, Hsu CL, Ts'ou B. The role of vocabulary and grammar in the listening text comprehension of school-age Cantonese-speaking children with developmental language disorder. Brain Lang 2024; 248:105360. [PMID: 38061272 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105360] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2023] [Revised: 11/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 01/01/2024]
Abstract
The current study examined the role of vocabulary and grammar in the listening comprehension of school-age Cantonese-speaking children with developmental language disorder in Hong Kong. Participants were 692 typically developing children (TD) and 53 children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and they were tested with a standardized test of oral Cantonese, which includes measures on listening comprehension, receptive and expressive grammar, expressive vocabulary, word definition and lexical relations. The results from multiple regression analysis revealed that listening comprehension of the TD group was explained by receptive grammar, expressive vocabulary, and lexical relationships. However, children of the DLD group mainly relied on a subset of their vocabulary knowledge, as measured in a lexical relation task on antonym, in understanding the text under the constraint of a limited grammatical knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hin Tat Cheung
- Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Asia University, Taiwan; Department of Applied English, Shandong University, China.
| | - Chia-Ling Hsu
- Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, Hong Kong
| | - Benjamin Ts'ou
- City University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
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Everett G, Matsler AM, Chan FKS, Naclerio MA, Morzillo AT, Lamond JE. Lifestyle and language barriers influence community engagement with green infrastructure. Ambio 2023; 52:1650-1660. [PMID: 37209354 PMCID: PMC10460762 DOI: 10.1007/s13280-023-01877-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2022] [Revised: 02/23/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2023] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Few studies have focused on value structures, experiences, and cultural diversity as it relates to bioswale planning and implementation. We used 'Point of Opportunity Interactions' to understand previously undocumented views of the Cantonese-speaking immigrant community regarding bioswale design and use for stormwater management in Portland, Oregon, USA. Approximately half of participants were not aware of bioswale function. Maintenance costs and aesthetics were noted concerns, but parking and safety were not. Lack of outreach materials in the Chinese language(s), evening and weekend work schedules, and lack of clarity about maintenance responsibility were among barriers to public participation. Overall, lack of trust for the city and city officials was apparent, and hindered outreach and engagement. Emphasis on informality and place-based data collection near bioswales as neutral outdoors spaces, and proximate to participant residences, facilitated communication with this 'hard-to-reach' population and revealed information that would have gone unknown using traditional outreach strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Glyn Everett
- Frenchay Campus, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, England
| | - A Marissa Matsler
- Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Faith Ka Shun Chan
- School of Geographical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, 315100, China
| | - Marissa A Naclerio
- Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
| | - Anita T Morzillo
- Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
| | - Jessica E Lamond
- Frenchay Campus, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, England
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Zhang Y, Chen X, Chen S, Meng Y, Lee A. Visual-auditory perception of prosodic focus in Japanese by native and non-native speakers. Front Hum Neurosci 2023; 17:1237395. [PMID: 37810763 PMCID: PMC10552536 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1237395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Speech communication is multi-sensory in nature. Seeing a speaker's head and face movements may significantly influence the listeners' speech processing, especially when the auditory information is not clear enough. However, research on the visual-auditory integration speech processing has left prosodic perception less well investigated than segmental perception. Furthermore, while native Japanese speakers tend to use less visual cues in segmental perception than in other western languages, to what extent the visual cues are used in Japanese focus perception by the native and non-native listeners remains unknown. To fill in these gaps, we test focus perception in Japanese among native Japanese speakers and Cantonese speakers who learn Japanese, using auditory-only and auditory-visual sentences as stimuli. Methodology Thirty native Tokyo Japanese speakers and thirty Cantonese-speaking Japanese learners who had passed the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test with level N2 or N3 were asked to judge the naturalness of 28 question-answer pairs made up of broad focus eliciting questions and three-word answers carrying broad focus, or contrastive or non-contrastive narrow focus on the middle object words. Question-answer pairs were presented in two sensory modalities, auditory-only and visual-auditory modalities in two separate experimental sessions. Results Both the Japanese and Cantonese groups showed weak integration of visual cues in the judgement of naturalness. Visual-auditory modality only significantly influenced Japanese participants' perception when the questions and answers were mismatched, but when the answers carried non-contrastive narrow focus, the visual cues impeded rather than facilitated their judgement. Also, the influences of specific visual cues like the displacement of eyebrows or head movements of both Japanese and Cantonese participants' responses were only significant when the questions and answers were mismatched. While Japanese participants consistently relied on the left eyebrow for focus perception, the Cantonese participants referred to head movements more often. Discussion The lack of visual-auditory integration in Japanese speaking population found in segmental perception also exist in prosodic perception of focus. Not much foreign language effects has been found among the Cantonese-speaking learners either, suggesting a limited use of facial expressions in focus marking by native and non-native Japanese speakers. Overall, the present findings indicate that the integration of visual cues in perception of focus may be specific to languages rather than universal, adding to our understanding of multisensory speech perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yixin Zhang
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Xi Chen
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Si Chen
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Research Institute for Smart Ageing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- The HK PolyU-PekingU Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yuzhe Meng
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Albert Lee
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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13
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Xiao C, Yang X, Yu Z, Wu W, Wang Y, Xu Q, Chen L. Genetic polymorphism and variability in the Guangdong Hakka, Teochew, and Cantonese groups: A comprehensive analysis of 19 X-STRs. Ann Hum Genet 2023; 87:232-240. [PMID: 37337755 DOI: 10.1111/ahg.12518] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2022] [Revised: 05/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/21/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND X chromosomeshort tandem repeat (X-STR) loci are playing an increasingly important role inforensic work, identifying female traces in male contamination and explainingcomplex kinship analyses. METHODS In this study, we analyzed thegenetic polymorphism of 19 X-STR loci in the Guangdong Hakka, Teochew and Cantonese groups, respectively, aswell as in the Guangdong Hakka, Teochew andCantonese pooled Han. The genetic diversity and forensic characteristics of the19 X-STRs and 7 linkage groups were investigated, respectively. RESULTS The experiments showed that the genetic diversity (GD) and polymorphism information content (PIC) in the pooledGuangdong Han ranged from 0.5320 to 0.9234 and 0.4369 to 0.9171, respectively, and the cumulative power of discrimination for males (PDM), power of discrimination for females (PDF) and mean paternity exclusion chance (MEC) were higher than 0.9999999, indicating that the 19 X-STRs had high geneticpolymorphism and discriminatory power. Genetic differences among Chinese Hansubgroups and among different Chinese populations were investigated byphylogenetic reconstruction and principal component analysis (PCA), respectively. Genetic analyses based on neighbor-joining (NJ) tree and principal component analysis plot showed that Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka were closely genetically related, and different populations with closer linguistic components had more genetic affinity. CONCLUSIONS This study adds to the forensic X-STR database and demonstrates the forensic efficiency of 19 X-STRs for the Hakka, Teochewand Cantonese populations in Guangdong, and the pooled Han of Hakka, Teochewand Cantonese people in Guangdong.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Xiao
- Guangzhou Red Cross Hospital, Guangzhou, China
- School of Forensic Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xingyi Yang
- Guangzhou Forensic Science Institute, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhonghao Yu
- Guangzhou Forensic Science Institute, Guangzhou, China
| | - Weibin Wu
- Guangzhou Forensic Science Institute, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yuan Wang
- School of Forensic Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Quyi Xu
- School of Forensic Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
- Guangzhou Forensic Science Institute, Guangzhou, China
| | - Ling Chen
- School of Forensic Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
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14
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Su IF, Yum YN, Lau DKY. Hong Kong Chinese character psycholinguistic norms: ratings of 4376 single Chinese characters on semantic radical transparency, age-of-acquisition, familiarity, imageability, and concreteness. Behav Res Methods 2023; 55:2989-3008. [PMID: 36002627 PMCID: PMC10558066 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-022-01928-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Several norms of psycholinguistic features of Chinese characters exist in Mandarin Chinese, but only a few are available in Cantonese or in the traditional script, and none includes semantic radical transparency ratings. This study presents subjective ratings of age-of-acquisition (AoA), familiarity, imageability, concreteness, and semantic radical transparency in 4376 Chinese characters. The single Chinese characters were rated individually on the five dimensions by 20 native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong to form the Hong Kong Chinese Character Psycholinguistic Norms (HKCCPN). The split-half reliability and intra-class correlations testified to the high internal reliability of the ratings. Their convergent and discriminant patterns in relations to other psycholinguistic measures echoed previous findings reported on Chinese. There were high correlations for semantic radical transparency, imageability and concreteness, and moderate-to-high correlations for AoA and familiarity among subsets of items that had been collected in previous studies. Concurrent validity analyses showed convergence in predicting behavioral response times in various tasks (lexical decision, naming, and writing-to-dictation) when compared with other Chinese character databases. High predictive validity was shown in writing-to-dictation data from an independent sample of 20 native Cantonese speakers. Several objective psycholinguistic measures (character frequency, stroke number, number of words formed, number of homophones and number of meanings) were included in this database to facilitate its use. These new ratings extend the currently available norms in language and reading research in Cantonese Chinese for researchers, clinicians, and educators, as well as provide them with a wider choice of stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Yen Na Yum
- Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, NT Ting Kok, Hong Kong
| | - Dustin Kai-Yan Lau
- Department of Bilingual and Chinese Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
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15
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Lau DKY, Tang TPY, Wong CCY, Yau TSK, Lam IHC. Systematic language input improved productions of elaborated verb phrases of Cantonese-speaking children with language difficulties. Clin Linguist Phon 2023; 37:473-490. [PMID: 36592049 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2022.2157330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2021] [Revised: 12/03/2022] [Accepted: 12/05/2022] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
It has been well-documented that language input designed according to the principles of statistical learning can promote language acquisition among children with or without language disorder. Cantonese-speaking children with language disorder were reported to have difficulties using expanded verb phrases and prepositional phrases, but the corresponding intervention is relatively unexplored. The current study evaluated the efficacy of an intervention designed using the statistical learning principles to promote the acquisition of these two structures. A retrospective study of existing data collected from a total of 16 Cantonese-speaking children (four female; mean age = 6.70 years) with suspected language disorder was conducted. The participants were initially divided into the 'Treatment' and the 'Control' groups. A total of eight sessions of language treatment, which focused on giving systematic language input of expanded verb phrases and prepositional phrases, were conducted on each child. Results showed that the Treatment group produced significantly more expanded verb phrases in the post-treatment language samples, while the Control group did not. The final pre- and post-comparison conducted after the Control group also received treatment indicated overall significant increased number of expanded verb phrases produced across time. On the contrary, improvement in the production of prepositional phrases was not significant. It is suggested that the unique thematic roles coded by individual prepositions possibly restricted the generalisation effect of treatment, which explains the non-significant improvement across time. Theoretical and clinical implications were discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dustin Kai-Yan Lau
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Tempo Po-Yi Tang
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Christy Choi-Yan Wong
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Teresa Siu-Kwan Yau
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Iris Hang-Ching Lam
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
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16
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Bakhtiar M, Wong MN, Lam MW, McNeil MR. Reading and listening comprehension in Cantonese-speaking people with right hemisphere versus left hemisphere brain damage. Clin Linguist Phon 2023; 37:567-582. [PMID: 36779905 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2023.2176787] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2021] [Revised: 12/28/2022] [Accepted: 01/26/2023] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
The problem in language comprehension in people with right hemisphere damage (RHD) is more equivocal than people with left hemisphere damage. This study explores the reading and listening comprehension of Cantonese-speaking individuals with RHD, left hemisphere damage, and neurotypical healthy controls using the Cantonese Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT-Cantonese) adapted from the English CRTT. Eighteen native Cantonese-speaking individuals with RHD, 32 individuals with left hemisphere damage and aphasia (PWA), and 42 healthy controls participated in this study. All the participants completed the Cantonese Aphasia Battery, Hong Kong Oxford Cognitive Screen, the listening comprehension version of CRTT-Cantonese (CRTT-L-Cantonese), and the reading comprehension version of CRTT-Cantonese (CRTT-R-WF-Cantonese) across different sessions. Linear mixed-effect analysis revealed significant differences among the groups in CRTT-Cantonese tests. However, there were no significant difference between CRTT-L-Cantonese and CRTT-R-WF-Cantonese within the PWA, RHD and healthy control groups. Tukey post-hoc pairwise comparisons showed that PWA scored significantly lower than RHD and healthy control groups (p < 0.0001) in both CRTT-L-Cantonese and CRTT-R-WF-Cantonese, and the RHD group scored significantly lower than healthy control group only on the CRTT-R-WF-Cantonese. The results demonstrate that the CRTT-L-Cantonese and CRTT-R-WF-Cantonese differentiate language comprehension abilities among PWA, RHD and healthy control groups. Although the current findings did not show any diversion between reading and listening comprehension in RHD group, this group showed poorer performance in reading comprehension when compared to healthy controls. The latter findings may support the view that the right hemisphere contributes to reading comprehension in Chinese.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mehdi Bakhtiar
- Unit of Human Communication, Development and Information Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
| | - Min Ney Wong
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
- Research Institute for Smart Ageing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
| | - Ming Wai Lam
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
| | - Malcolm R McNeil
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
- Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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17
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Sheng L, Yu J, Su PL, Wang D, Lu TH, Shen L, Hao Y, Lam BPW. Developmental language disorder in Chinese children: A systematic review of research from 1997 to 2022. Brain Lang 2023; 241:105268. [PMID: 37156064 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2022] [Revised: 04/09/2023] [Accepted: 04/15/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders. The influences of DLD on language development have been delineated in detail in English. The same is not true for Chinese, a group of Sinitic languages with distinct typological features that may modify the profile of DLD crosslinguistically. We conducted a systematic search of English and Chinese journal databases and reviewed 59 studies on the manifestations of DLD in Chinese. Methodological quality appraisal of the literature revealed several areas of improvement to enhance transparency and replicability. A bibliometric analysis indicated a steep growth trajectory of this literature. Examination of the participant selection and diagnostic criteria revealed limitations and calls for the development of assessment tools and increased knowledge of evidenced-based diagnostic practice. Areas of deficits demonstrated by Chinese children with DLD were synthesized qualitatively and discussed in light of the literature on clinical markers of DLD in English.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Sheng
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Special Administrative Region of China.
| | - Jiayu Yu
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Special Administrative Region of China
| | | | | | | | - Lue Shen
- Boston University, United States
| | - Ying Hao
- Nanjing Normal University, China
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18
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Alderete J. Cross-Linguistic Trends in Speech Errors: An Analysis of Sub-Lexical Errors in Cantonese. Lang Speech 2023; 66:79-104. [PMID: 35135407 PMCID: PMC9975887 DOI: 10.1177/00238309211071045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Though past research on the sound structure of speech errors has contributed greatly to our understanding of phonological encoding, most of this research comes from a small set of majority languages with similar linguistic structures. To increase the linguistic diversity of relevant evidence, a large collection of speech errors was investigated in Cantonese, an under-studied language with unique phonological structures. In particular, the Cantonese data were examined for nine psycholinguistic effects commonly used as a lens on word-form encoding. Detailed quantitative analysis found that Cantonese has eight of these effects, providing broader cross-linguistic support for models based on these patterns. Yet Cantonese also exhibited differences with well-known Indo-European languages by having a higher rate of errors involving whole syllables and sub-constituents inside the syllable rime. These differences can be accounted for by recognizing the primacy of the syllable and mora in encoding Cantonese words, following proposals that have been made for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.
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Affiliation(s)
- John Alderete
- John Alderete, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
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19
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Chan A, Chen S, Hamdani S, Tse B, Cheng K. Story telling in bilingual Urdu- Cantonese ethnic minority children: Macrostructure and its relation to microstructural linguistic skills. Front Psychol 2023; 14:924056. [PMID: 36923152 PMCID: PMC10009217 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.924056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2022] [Accepted: 01/17/2023] [Indexed: 03/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction The ability to produce a well-structured, coherent and informative narrative requires the integration of lexical and grammatical skills at different levels of complexity. Investigating how narrative macrostructure competence is predicted by microstructural linguistic skills is conceptually enlightening; yet there have been very few, if any, studies documenting the associations between macrostructure and microstructure in both languages of the same bilinguals. In this paper we attempt to address this research gap and report on the first empirical study of Urdu-Cantonese bilingual children's narrative abilities, bringing in data from a new language pair that is currently understudied. Methods Twenty-four bilinguals (mean age = 9.17 years) acquiring Urdu as first, family and heritage minority language, and Cantonese as second, school and majority language were assessed via Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). We examined these children's macrostructural competence and its relations to microstructural skills in both languages (Urdu and Cantonese). Three macrostructure components were scored as response variables: Story Structure (SS), Story Complexity (SC), Internal State Terms (IST). Four microstructural measures were scored as predictor variables: number of different words (NDW), mean length of Communication Units (MLCU), proportion of grammatical Communication Units (Gproportion), proportion of correct connectives linking the major episodic elements (Cproportion). Results In regression analyses, NDW emerged consistently as a positive predictor of SS, SC and IST in both languages. MLCU and NDW were positive predictors of SS in the stronger L1, but NDW was the only positive predictor of SS in L2. By contrast, NDW and an index of syntactic competence (MLCU in L1, but Cproportion in L2) were significant or close-to-significant positive predictors of SC in both languages. NDW was the only positive predictor of IST in both languages. These findings suggested that the relationships between narrative macrostructure and specific microstructural abilities could manifest both similarly and differently between L1 and L2. Discussion We discuss the findings by considering the unique nature of each macrostructure component and how each component might be related to specific microstructural linguistic skills. We suggest directions for further research and discuss how the current findings bring deeper implications for educators and clinicians in assessment, pedagogy, and intervention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angel Chan
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Speech Therapy Unit, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University - Peking University Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Sarah Chen
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University - Peking University Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Saboor Hamdani
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Speech Therapy Unit, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Bernard Tse
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Kelly Cheng
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Speech Therapy Unit, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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20
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Zhang T, He M, Li B, Zhang C, Hu J. Acoustic Characteristics of Cantonese Speech Through Protective Facial Coverings. J Voice 2022:S0892-1997(22)00269-7. [PMID: 36266224 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.08.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Revised: 08/26/2022] [Accepted: 08/26/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Protective facial coverings (PFCs) such as surgical masks attenuate speech transmission and affect speech intelligibility, which is reported in languages such as English and German. The present study intended to verify the detrimental impacts on production of tonal languages such as Cantonese, by examining realization of speech correlates in Cantonese under PFCs including facial masks and shields. METHODS We recorded scripted speech in Hong Kong Cantonese produced by three adult speakers who wore various PFCs, including surgical masks, KF94 masks, and face shields (with and without surgical masks). Spectral and temporal parameters were measured, including mean intensity, speaking rate, long-term amplitude spectrum, formant frequencies of vowels, and duration and fundamental frequency (F0) of tone-bearing parts. RESULTS Significant changes were observed in all acoustic correlates of Cantonese speech under PFCs. Sound pressure levels were attenuated more intensely at ranges of higher frequencies in speech through face masks, whereas sound transmission was affected more at ranges of lower frequencies in speech under face shields. Vowel spaces derived from formant frequencies shrank under all PFCs, with the vowel /aa/ demonstrating largest changes in the first two formants. All tone-bearing parts were shortened and showed increments of F0 means in speech through PFCs. The decrease of tone duration was statistically significant in High-level and Low-level tones, while the increment of F0 means was significant in High-level tone only. CONCLUSIONS General filtering effect of PFCs is observed in Cantonese speech data, confirming language-universal patterns in acoustic attenuation by PFCs. The various coverings lower overall intensity levels of speech and degrade speech signal in higher frequency regions. Modification patterns specific to Hong Kong Cantonese are also identified. Vowel space area is reduced and found associated with increased speaking rates. Tones are produced with higher F0s under PFCs, which may be attributed to vocal tension caused by tightened vocal tract during speaking through facial coverings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ting Zhang
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China
| | - Mosi He
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China
| | - Bin Li
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China.
| | - Cuiling Zhang
- School of Criminal Investigation, Southwest University of Political Science & Law, Chongqing, China; Chongqing Institutes of Higher Education Key Forensic Science Laboratory, Chongqing, China
| | - Jinlian Hu
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China
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Abstract
Heritage speakers contend with at least two languages: the less dominant first language (L1), that is, the heritage language, and the more dominant second language (L2). In some cases, their L1 and L2 bear striking phonological differences. In the current study, we investigate Toronto-born Cantonese heritage speakers and their maintenance of Cantonese lexical tone, a linguistic feature that is absent from English, the more dominant L2. Across two experiments, Cantonese heritage speakers were tested on their phonetic/phonological and lexical encoding of tone in Cantonese. Experiment 1 was an AX discrimination task with varying inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs), which revealed that heritage speakers discriminated tone pairs with disparate pitch contours better than those with shared pitch contours. Experiment 2 was a medium-term repetition priming experiment, designed to extend the findings of Experiment 1 by examining tone representations at the lexical level. We observed a positive correlation between English dominance and priming in tone minimal pairs that shared contours. Thus, while increased English dominance does not affect heritage speakers' phonological-level representations, tasks that require lexical access suggest that heritage Cantonese speakers may not robustly and fully distinctively encode Cantonese tone in lexical memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel Soo
- Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Canada; Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada; Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Canada
| | - Philip J Monahan
- Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada; Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada
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22
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Huang S, Kan PF. Cross-linguistic transfer between aspect in Cantonese and past tense in English in Cantonese-English bilingual preschool children. Int J Speech Lang Pathol 2022; 24:385-394. [PMID: 34629002 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2021.1981445] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Purpose: This study addresses the question of whether sequential bilingual children's past tense marking development in their second language (L2) is affected by their knowledge of temporal marking in their first language (L1). We investigated whether Cantonese-English sequential bilingual children's knowledge of aspect markers in Cantonese (L1), along with external and internal factors, predicts their past tense marking in English (L2).Method: We examined 39 pre-school children's production of perfective aspect markers in Cantonese and regular and irregular past tense morphemes in English using a story-retell task administered in both languages.Result: The results showed that children produced significantly more irregular past tense verbs than regular past tense verbs in English. Their English irregular past tense use, but not regular past tense use, was predicted by their knowledge of aspect markers in Cantonese.Conclusion: Findings suggest that semantic transfer between Cantonese and English might contribute to the early stages of acquiring English past tense marking. Clinically, the results could potentially lead to more informed assessment procedures and better diagnostic decision making for bilingual children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shirley Huang
- Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Pui Fong Kan
- Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
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23
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Pun J, Yu QJ, Sicuan TK, Macaraeg MAG, Cia JMP. An Exploratory Study of Cantonese Learning Strategies Amongst Non-Chinese English-Speaking Ethnic Minority University Students in Hong Kong. Front Psychol 2022; 13:910603. [PMID: 35719577 PMCID: PMC9200990 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.910603] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2022] [Accepted: 05/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigates the strategies for learning Cantonese that are adopted by non-Chinese English-speaking ethnic minority (EM) university students in Hong Kong. The aim is to identify the challenges these students face in applying their strategies to learn Cantonese and to explore their learning experiences when implementing them. Drawing on questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews with 30 EM students at a university in Hong Kong, this study identifies these learners' strategies, elicits their views on the use of these strategies and examines their learning experiences. The findings suggest that EM students are "medium strategy users," with social strategies being their most commonly used types of learning strategies, followed by compensation and metacognitive strategies. The more proficient Cantonese users tend to use metacognitive strategies that promote planning and are goal-oriented. Taken together, this study sheds light on the complex interplay of sociocultural variables in shaping EM university students' Cantonese learning experience in Hong Kong. It also highlights the importance of analysing EM students' linguistic repertoire and the local language ecology in understanding Cantonese learning in a multilingual context like Hong Kong.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jack Pun
- Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Momenian M, Lau KYD, Bakhtiar M. Developing psycholinguistic norms for action pictures in Cantonese. Appl Neuropsychol Adult 2022:1-8. [PMID: 35172653 DOI: 10.1080/23279095.2022.2037596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to establish psycholinguistic norms for 249 action pictures in Cantonese, a language with few norms available. We provide normative data for rated visual complexity, rated age of acquisition, name agreement, word frequency and rated familiarity in this study. Forty participants were recruited to participate in both timed picture naming and rating experiments. The linear mixed effect analysis revealed that familiarity, visual complexity, and name agreement were significant predictors of action naming in Cantonese. However, AoA did not show any significant effect on action naming, which is consistently observed in previous studies of action picture naming in Chinese. The possible explanation for null effect of AoA on naming latency are discussed. This set of psycholinguistic norms in Cantonese could serve as a valuable resource for future psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic and clinical studies in Cantonese.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Momenian
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
| | - Kai-Yan Dustin Lau
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
| | - Mehdi Bakhtiar
- Unit of Human Communication, Development, and Information Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
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25
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Lee A, Ng E. Hong Kong Women Project a Larger Body When Speaking to Attractive Men. Front Psychol 2022; 12:786507. [PMID: 35069371 PMCID: PMC8767052 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.786507] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2021] [Accepted: 12/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
In this pilot study we investigated the vocal strategies of Cantonese women when addressing an attractive vs. unattractive male. We recruited 19 young female native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese who completed an attractiveness rating task, followed by a speech production task where they were presented a subset of the same faces. By comparing the rating results and corresponding acoustic data of the facial stimuli, we found that when young Cantonese women spoke to an attractive male, they were less breathy, lower in fundamental frequency, and with denser formants, all of which are considered to project a larger body. Participants who were more satisfied with their own height used these vocal strategies more actively. These results are discussed in terms of the body size projection principle.
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Affiliation(s)
- Albert Lee
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Eva Ng
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Chan A, Matthews S, Tse N, Lam A, Chang F, Kidd E. Revisiting Subject-Object Asymmetry in the Production of Cantonese Relative Clauses: Evidence From Elicited Production in 3-Year-Olds. Front Psychol 2021; 12:679008. [PMID: 35002822 PMCID: PMC8732946 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.679008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2021] [Accepted: 11/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Emergentist approaches to language acquisition identify a core role for language-specific experience and give primacy to other factors like function and domain-general learning mechanisms in syntactic development. This directly contrasts with a nativist structurally oriented approach, which predicts that grammatical development is guided by Universal Grammar and that structural factors constrain acquisition. Cantonese relative clauses (RCs) offer a good opportunity to test these perspectives because its typologically rare properties decouple the roles of frequency and complexity in subject- and object-RCs in a way not possible in European languages. Specifically, Cantonese object RCs of the classifier type are frequently attested in children's linguistic experience and are isomorphic to frequent and early-acquired simple SVO transitive clauses, but according to formal grammatical analyses Cantonese subject RCs are computationally less demanding to process. Thus, the two opposing theories make different predictions: the emergentist approach predicts a specific preference for object RCs of the classifier type, whereas the structurally oriented approach predicts a subject advantage. In the current study we revisited this issue. Eighty-seven monolingual Cantonese children aged between 3;2 and 3;11 (Mage: 3;6) participated in an elicited production task designed to elicit production of subject- and object- RCs. The children were very young and most of them produced only noun phrases when RCs were elicited. Those (nine children) who did produce RCs produced overwhelmingly more object RCs than subject RCs, even when animacy cues were controlled. The majority of object RCs produced were the frequent classifier-type RCs. The findings concur with our hypothesis from the emergentist perspectives that input frequency and formal and functional similarity to known structures guide acquisition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angel Chan
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University – Peking University Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Stephen Matthews
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Nicole Tse
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Annie Lam
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Franklin Chang
- Department of English Studies, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Kobe, Japan
| | - Evan Kidd
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Canberra, ACT, Australia
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Tao R, Zhang K, Peng G. Music Does Not Facilitate Lexical Tone Normalization: A Speech-Specific Perceptual Process. Front Psychol 2021; 12:717110. [PMID: 34777097 PMCID: PMC8585521 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2021] [Accepted: 09/30/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Listeners utilize the immediate contexts to efficiently normalize variable vocal streams into standard phonology units. However, researchers debated whether non-speech contexts can also serve as valid clues for speech normalization. Supporters of the two sides proposed a general-auditory hypothesis and a speech-specific hypothesis to explain the underlying mechanisms. A possible confounding factor of this inconsistency is the listeners' perceptual familiarity of the contexts, as the non-speech contexts were perceptually unfamiliar to listeners. In this study, we examined this confounding factor by recruiting a group of native Cantonese speakers with sufficient musical training experience and a control group with minimal musical training. Participants performed lexical tone judgment tasks in three contextual conditions, i.e., speech, non-speech, and music context conditions. Both groups were familiar with the speech context and not familiar with the non-speech context. The musician group was more familiar with the music context than the non-musician group. The results evidenced the lexical tone normalization process in speech context but not non-speech nor music contexts. More importantly, musicians did not outperform non-musicians on any contextual conditions even if the musicians were experienced at pitch perception, indicating that there is no noticeable transfer in pitch perception from the music domain to the linguistic domain for tonal language speakers. The findings showed that even high familiarity with a non-linguistic context cannot elicit an effective lexical tone normalization process, supporting the speech-specific basis of the perceptual normalization process.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Gang Peng
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Hui TF, Cox SR, Huang T, Chen WR, Ng ML. The Effect of Clear Speech on Cantonese Alaryngeal Speakers' Intelligibility. Folia Phoniatr Logop 2021; 74:103-111. [PMID: 34333487 PMCID: PMC8800939 DOI: 10.1159/000517676] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2021] [Accepted: 06/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Background/Aim: The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary data concerning the effect of clear speech (CS) on Cantonese alaryngeal speakers’ intelligibility. Methods: Voice recordings of 11 sentences randomly selected from the Cantonese Sentence Intelligibility Test (CSIT) were obtained from 31 alaryngeal speakers (9 electrolarynx [EL] users, 10 esophageal speakers and 12 tracheoesophageal [TE] speakers) in habitual speech (HS) and CS. Two naïve listeners orthographically transcribed a total of 1,364 sentences. Results: Significant effects of speaking condition on speaking rate and CSIT scores were observed, but no significant effect of alaryngeal communication methods was noted. CS was significantly slower than HS by 0.78 syllables/s. Esophageal speakers demonstrated the slowest speech rate when using CS, while EL users demonstrated the largest decrease in speaking rate when using CS compared to HS. TE speakers had the highest CSIT scores in HS (listener 1 = 81.4%; listener 2 = 81.3%), and esophageal speakers had the highest CSIT scores in CS (listener 1 = 87.5%; listener 2 = 89.7%). EL users experienced the largest increase in intelligibility while using CS compared to HS (9.1%) followed by esophageal speakers (8.9%) and TE speakers (1.4%). Conclusion: Preliminary data indicate that CS may significantly affect Cantonese alaryngeal speakers’ speaking rate and intelligibility. However, intelligibility appeared to vary considerably across speakers. Further research involving larger, heterogeneous groups of speakers and listeners alongside longer and more refined CS training protocols should be conducted to confirm that CS can improve Cantonese alaryngeal speakers’ intelligibility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tak Fai Hui
- Speech Science Laboratory, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Steven Randall Cox
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Adelphi University, New York, New York, USA
| | - Ting Huang
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | | | - Manwa Lawrence Ng
- Speech Science Laboratory, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Chen F, Cheung CCH, Peng G. Linguistic Tone and Non-Linguistic Pitch Imitation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation. J Autism Dev Disord 2021; 52:2325-2343. [PMID: 34109462 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-021-05123-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/30/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The conclusions on prosodic pitch features in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have primarily been derived from studies in non-tonal language speakers. This cross-linguistic study evaluated the performance of imitating Cantonese lexical tones and their non-linguistic (nonspeech) counterparts by Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking children with and without ASD. Acoustic analyses showed that, compared with typically developing peers, children with ASD exhibited increased pitch variations when imitating lexical tones, while performed similarly when imitating the nonspeech counterparts. Furthermore, Mandarin-speaking children with ASD failed to exploit the phonological knowledge of segments to improve the imitation accuracy of non-native lexical tones. These findings help clarify the speech-specific pitch processing atypicality and phonological processing deficit in tone-language-speaking children with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fei Chen
- School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
| | - Candice Chi-Hang Cheung
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, & Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Gang Peng
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, & Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China.
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Kan RTY. Phonological Production in Young Speakers of Cantonese as a Heritage Language. Lang Speech 2021; 64:73-97. [PMID: 32339077 DOI: 10.1177/0023830920910460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
This study investigates the phonological production of 50 heritage speakers of Cantonese aged 5-11 in the USA. They were compared to 12 majority language speaker peers in Hong Kong via ratings from first language adult speakers. Overall, the heritage speakers were rated as less native-like and less comprehensible than the children in Hong Kong, although they received higher scores from raters speaking the same variety of Cantonese (i.e., Guangzhou Cantonese, vs. Hong Kong Cantonese). None of the tested language background factors, including age of testing, had a predictive effect on the heritage speakers' scores. The results illustrate the divergence and heterogeneity of heritage phonology compared to homeland varieties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel T Y Kan
- University of Essex, UK
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
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31
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Dulay KM, Law SY, McBride C, Ho CSH. Reciprocal effects of morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading: A cross-lagged panel analysis in Chinese. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 206:105100. [PMID: 33639574 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2019] [Revised: 01/07/2021] [Accepted: 01/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
There are strong correspondences among syllable, morpheme, and orthographic representations in Chinese. For this reason, bidirectional relationships have been hypothesized among morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading from an early age. Our study examined the reciprocity of these skills among Hong Kong Chinese primary school children. Data were collected from 160 first graders at two time points and were analyzed using a cross-lagged panel design with the three skills modeled simultaneously. No reciprocal pathways were demonstrated in the model; instead, unidirectional relationships emerged. Morphological awareness facilitated later word reading, and word reading facilitated later vocabulary knowledge. Results are discussed in relation to a developmental account of learning to read in Chinese.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katrina May Dulay
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
| | - Siu Yee Law
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
| | - Catherine McBride
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
| | - Connie Suk-Han Ho
- Department of Psychology, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
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Cheung YL, Zhang C, Zhang Y. Emotion processing in congenital amusia: the deficits do not generalize to written emotion words. Clin Linguist Phon 2021; 35:101-116. [PMID: 31986915 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2020.1719209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2019] [Revised: 01/10/2020] [Accepted: 01/17/2020] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Congenital amusia is a lifelong impairment in musical ability. Individuals with amusia are found to show reduced sensitivity to emotion recognition in speech prosody and silent facial expressions, implying a possible cross-modal emotion-processing deficit. However, it is not clear whether the observed deficits are primarily confined to socio-emotional contexts, where visual cues (facial expression) often co-occur with auditory cues (emotion prosody) to express intended emotions, or extend to linguistic emotion processing. In order to better understand the underlying deficiency mechanism of emotion processing in individuals with amusia, we examined whether reduced sensitivity to emotional processing extends to the recognition of emotion category and valence of written words in individuals with amusia. Twenty Cantonese speakers with amusia and 17 controls were tested in three experiments: (1) emotion prosody rating, in which participants rated how much each spoken sentence was expressed in each of the four emotions on 7-point rating scales; (2) written word emotion recognition, in which participants recognized the emotion of written emotion words; and (3) written word valence judgment, in which participants judged the valence of written words. Results showed that participants with amusia preformed significantly less accurately than controls in emotion prosody recognition; in contrast, the two groups showed no significant difference in accuracy rates in both written word tasks (emotion recognition and valence judgment). The results indicate that the impairment of individuals with amusia in emotion processing may not generalize to linguistic emotion processing in written words, implying that the emotion deficit is likely to be restricted to socio-emotional contexts in individuals with amusia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Lam Cheung
- School of Management, Cranfield University , Cranfield, UK
| | - Caicai Zhang
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong, SAR, China
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong, SAR, China
| | - Yubin Zhang
- Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California , Los Angeles, California, USA
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33
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Momenian M, Bakhtiar M, Chan YK, Cheung SL, Weekes BS. Picture naming in bilingual and monolingual Chinese speakers: Capturing similarity and variability. Behav Res Methods 2021; 53:1677-88. [PMID: 33483940 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-020-01521-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Picture-naming latency differs across languages in bilingual speakers. We compared the effects of key psycholinguistic variables on picture naming among two groups of Chinese bilingual speakers and Mandarin monolingual speakers. First, we asked bilingual and monolingual speakers to estimate the age of acquisition, familiarity, visual complexity, name agreement, and imageability of a set of object and action pictures in Mandarin and Cantonese. Next, we recruited 60 Cantonese-English speakers, 50 Mandarin-Cantonese bilingual speakers, and 30 monolingual speakers who named the object and action pictures in Cantonese and Mandarin, respectively. We observed variability in the effects of item-level characteristics among groups, suggesting an interaction between item-level and individual-level characteristics as predicted. This variability was higher in bilingual speakers who spoke similar languages (Mandarin-Cantonese) in comparison to those speaking more distant languages (Cantonese-English). Our results suggest that monolingual norms and bilingual norms capture the same amount of variability; however, grammatical class interactions with other variables are explained differentially by the bilingual and monolingual norms. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of norming studies for timed picture naming and effects of bilingualism on language processing.
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Abstract
We used an error disruption paradigm to investigate how deaf readers from Hong Kong, who had varying levels of reading fluency, use orthographic, phonological, and mouth-shape-based (i.e., "visemic") codes during Chinese sentence reading while also examining the role of contextual information in facilitating lexical retrieval and integration. Participants had their eye movements recorded as they silently read Chinese sentences containing orthographic, homophonic, homovisemic, or unrelated errors. Sentences varied in terms of how much contextual information was available leading up to the target word. Fixation time analyses revealed that in early fixation measures, deaf readers activated word meanings primarily through orthographic representations. However, in contexts where targets were highly predictable, fixation times on homophonic errors decreased relative to those on unrelated errors, suggesting that higher levels of contextual predictability facilitated early phonological activation. In the measure of total reading time, results indicated that deaf readers activated word meanings primarily through orthographic representations, but they also appeared to activate word meanings through visemic representations in late error recovery processes. Examining the influence of reading fluency level on error recovery processes, we found that, in comparison to deaf readers with lower reading fluency levels, those with higher reading fluency levels could more quickly resolve homophonic and orthographic errors in the measures of gaze duration and total reading time, respectively. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications of these findings as they relate to the lexical quality hypothesis and the dual-route cascaded model of reading by deaf adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philip Thierfelder
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Gillian Wigglesworth
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Gladys Tang
- Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
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Chen H, LabertoniÈre D, Cheung H, Nazzi T. Infant learning of words in a typologically distant nonnative language. J Child Lang 2020; 47:1276-1287. [PMID: 32370813 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000920000161] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Infants attune to their native language during the first two years of life, as attested by decreases in the processing of nonnative phonological sounds and reductions in the range of possible sounds accepted as labels for native words. The present study shows that French-learning infants aged 1;8 can learn new words in an unfamiliar language, Cantonese, after just 6 repetitions of each word. This shows that word learning in a nonnative language remains possible during the second year of life even in a nonnative language that is typologically distinct from the native language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Chen
- CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris, France
- Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
| | - Dahliane LabertoniÈre
- CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris, France
- Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
| | | | - Thierry Nazzi
- CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris, France
- Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France
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Kellow NJ, Palermo C, Choi TS. Not Scared of Sugar™: Outcomes of a structured type 2 diabetes group education program for Chinese Australians. Health Soc Care Community 2020; 28:2273-2281. [PMID: 32468678 DOI: 10.1111/hsc.13046] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2019] [Revised: 03/23/2020] [Accepted: 05/11/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Type 2 diabetes disproportionately affects the Chinese population yet there are no structured diabetes education programs specifically designed for this community in Australia. This project aimed to develop and evaluate a pilot type 2 diabetes group education program designed specifically for Chinese migrants living in Australia. A non-randomised pre- versus post-intervention trial was conducted between March 2017 and November 2018. A culturally tailored group education program (Not Scared of Sugar™) was developed and piloted with Melbourne-based Cantonese-speaking people with type 2 diabetes. Program teaching styles were aligned with the Confucian cultural process of learning and incorporated culturally specific strategies to promote healthy behaviour change. Thirty-four individuals (35% male) attended five education sessions over ten weeks, delivered by a Cantonese-speaking facilitator and multidisciplinary clinicians. Data were collected from participants at baseline, on program completion and at 6 months follow-up. Mean (SD) participant age was 69 (9) years, with a mean time of 25.7 (10.8) years in Australia and a median duration of diabetes of 10 (IQR = 2.8-20.5) years. At program completion, mean participant waist circumference (90.5 versus 89.2 cm, p < .001) and waist-to-height ratio (0.574 vs. 0.566, p < .001) was significantly reduced and both were further reduced at 6-month follow-up (p < .05). There was a significant increase in the median frequency of diabetes self-care behaviours undertaken, with American Association of Diabetes Educators Questionnaire Score: 30 (22-32.3) versus 33 (29.8-35.0), p < .001 at 6-month follow-up. Diabetes-related distress assessed by PAID-C was also significantly reduced at 6-month follow-up (p < .05). Mean HbA1c was unchanged after 6 months; 51 (7.9) versus 50 (7.8) mmol/mol, p = .316. Program attrition was 6%. Not Scared of Sugar™ successfully reduced waist circumference, increased diabetes self-management behaviours and reduced diabetes distress in Cantonese-speaking Australians, which may positively impact long-term risk of vascular complications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole J Kellow
- Department of Nutrition, Dietetics & Food, Monash University, Notting Hill, VIC, Australia
| | - Claire Palermo
- Department of Nutrition, Dietetics & Food, Monash University, Notting Hill, VIC, Australia
| | - Tammie St Choi
- Department of Nutrition, Dietetics & Food, Monash University, Notting Hill, VIC, Australia
- Carrington Health, Box Hill, VIC, Australia
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Chen H, Lee DT, Luo Z, Lai RY, Cheung H, Nazzi T. Variation in phonological bias: Bias for vowels, rather than consonants or tones in lexical processing by Cantonese-learning toddlers. Cognition 2020; 213:104486. [PMID: 33077170 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104486] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2020] [Revised: 09/30/2020] [Accepted: 10/03/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Consonants and vowels have been considered to fulfill different functions in language processing, vowels being more important for prosodic and syntactic processes and consonants for lexically related processes (Nespor, Peña, & Mehler, 2003). This C-bias hypothesis in lexical processing is supported by studies with adults and infants in many languages such as English, French, Spanish, although a few studies, on Danish and Mandarin, suggest the existence of cross-linguistic variation. The present study explores whether a C-bias exists in a tone language with a complex tone system, Cantonese, by comparing the relative weight given to consonants, vowels, and also tones during word learning. To do so, looking behaviors of Cantonese-learning 20- and 30-month-olds (24 children per age/condition, 6 groups) were recorded by an eyetracker while they watched animated cartoons in Cantonese to learn pairs of novel words. The words differed minimally by either a consonant (e.g., /tœ6/ vs. /kœ6/), a vowel (e.g., /khim3/ vs. /khɛm3/), or a tone (e.g., T2 vs. T5). Analyses on proportional looking times revealed significant learning in 30-month-olds only, and at that age, only for the vowel contrasts. Growth curve analyses revealed better performance for the vowel condition compared to the other two conditions. The present findings establish a V-bias in Cantonese-learning 30-month-olds, adding new evidence from that tone language that the C-bias in lexical processing is not language-general. Implications for theoretical discussions on the origins of this phonological bias, and the impact of tones in early language acquisition, are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Chen
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS & Université Paris Descartes, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France.
| | - Daniel T Lee
- The Education University of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong
| | - Zili Luo
- The Education University of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong
| | - Regine Y Lai
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, G/F, Leung Kau Kui Building, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
| | - Hintat Cheung
- The Education University of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong
| | - Thierry Nazzi
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS & Université Paris Descartes, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France.
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Thierfelder P, Durantin G, Wigglesworth G. The Effect of Word Predictability on Phonological Activation in Cantonese Reading: A Study of Eye-Fixations and Pupillary Response. J Psycholinguist Res 2020; 49:779-801. [PMID: 32556719 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-020-09713-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the effects of contextual predictability on orthographic and phonological activation during Chinese sentence reading by Cantonese-speaking readers using the error disruption paradigm. Participants' eye fixations and pupil sizes were recorded while they silently read Chinese sentences containing homophonic, orthographic, and unrelated errors. Sentences had varying amounts of contextual information leading up to target words such that some targets were more predictable than others. Results of the fixation time analysis indicated that orthographic effects were significant in first fixation and gaze duration, while phonological effects emerged later in total reading time. However, interactions between predictability and the homophonic condition were found in gaze duration. These results suggest that, while Cantonese readers activate word meanings primarily through orthography in early processing, early phonological activation can occur when facilitated by semantics in high-constraint sentence contexts. Analysis of pupillary response measurements revealed that participants' pupil sizes became larger when they read words containing orthographic errors, suggesting that orthographic error recovery processes significantly increase cognitive load.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philip Thierfelder
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
| | - Gautier Durantin
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
| | - Gillian Wigglesworth
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
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Luo J, Li VG, Mok PPK. The Perception of Cantonese Vowel Length Contrast by Mandarin Speakers. Lang Speech 2020; 63:635-659. [PMID: 31566064 DOI: 10.1177/0023830919879471] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The study investigates the perception of vowel length contrasts in Cantonese by native Mandarin speakers with varying degrees of experience in Cantonese: naïve listeners (no exposure), inexperienced learners (~1 year), and experienced learners (~5 years). While vowel length contrasts do not exist in Mandarin, they are, to some extent, exploited in English, the second language (L2) of all the participants. Using an AXB discrimination task, we investigate how native and L2 phonological knowledge affects the acquisition of vowel length contrasts in a third language (L3). The results revealed that all participant groups could discriminate three contrastive vowel pairs (/aː/-/ɐ/, /ɛː/-/e/, /ɔː/-/o/), but their performance was influenced by the degree of Cantonese exposure, particularly for learners in the early stage of acquisition. In addition to vowel quality differences, durational differences were proposed to explain the perceptual patterns. Furthermore, L2 English perception of the participants was found to modulate the perception of L3 Cantonese vowel length contrasts. Our findings demonstrate the bi-directional interaction between languages acquired at different stages, and provide concrete data to evaluate some speech acquisition models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingxin Luo
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
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Abstract
Congenital amusia is an inborn neurogenetic disorder of musical pitch processing, which also induces impairment in lexical tone perception. However, it has not been examined before how the brain specialization of lexical tone perception is affected in amusics. The current study adopted the dichotic listening paradigm to examine this issue, testing 18 Cantonese-speaking amusics and 18 matched controls on pitch/lexical tone identification and discrimination in three conditions: non-speech tone, low syllable variation, and high syllable variation. For typical listeners, the discrimination accuracy was higher with shorter RT in the left ear regardless of the stimulus types, suggesting a left-ear advantage in discrimination. When the demand of phonological processing increased, as in the identification task, shorter RT was still obtained in the left ear, however, the identification accuracy revealed a bilateral pattern. Taken together, the results of the identification task revealed a reduced LEA or a shift from the right hemisphere to bilateral processing in identification. Amusics exhibited overall poorer performance in both identification and discrimination tasks, indicating that pitch/lexical tone processing in dichotic listening settings was impaired, but there was no evidence that amusics showed different ear preference from controls. These findings provided temporary evidence that although amusics demonstrate deficient neural mechanisms of pitch/lexical tone processing, their ear preference patterns might not be affected. These results broadened the understanding of the nature of pitch and lexical tone processing deficiencies in amusia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Shao
- School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.,Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Caicai Zhang
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.,Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
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Abstract
Aphasia is a common type of acquired language impairment resulting from dysfunction in specific brain regions. Analysis of narrative spontaneous speech, e.g., story-telling, is an essential component of standardized clinical assessment on people with aphasia (PWA). Subjective assessment by trained speech-language pathologists (SLP) have many limitations in efficiency, effectiveness and practicality. This paper describes a fully automated system for speech assessment of Cantonese-speaking PWA. A deep neural network (DNN) based automatic speech recognition (ASR) system is developed for aphasic speech by multi-task training with both in-domain and out-of-domain speech data. Story-level embedding and Siamese network are applied to derive robust text features, which can be used to quantify the difference between aphasic speech and unimpaired one. The proposed text features are combined with conventional acoustic features to cover different aspects of speech and language impairment in PWA. Experimental results show a high correlation between predicted scores and subject assessment scores. The best correlation value achieved with ASR-generated transcription is .827, as compared with .844 achieved with manual transcription. The Siamese network significantly outperforms story-level embedding in generating text features for automatic assessment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ying Qin
- Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
| | - Tan Lee
- Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
| | - Anthony Pak Hin Kong
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
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Abstract
Objective: The present study aimed to establish the test-retest reliability and validity of a tablet-based automated pure-tone screening test and a word-in-noise test as hearing screening tools for older Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking adults.Design and study sample: It was a cross-sectional within-subject study. One hundred and thirty-two older adults participated in this study, and 112 of them completed the automated pure-tone screening test, word-in-noise test, and conventional pure-tone audiometry. Pure-tone threshold of 40 dB HL at each of the tested frequencies including 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000 Hz, obtained with conventional pure-tone audiometry was set as the pass/refer criterion, for the calculation of sensitivity and specificity of the tablet-based screening tools.Results: The tablet-based automated pure-tone screening test yielded a sensitivity of 0.93 and specificity of 0.82, while the word-in-noise test yielded a sensitivity of 0.81 and specificity of 0.70 with the cut-off chosen as a speech reception threshold of -3.5 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Both tests require around 3 minutes to be completed on both ears.Conclusions: The tablet-based pure-tone test and word-in-noise test are reliable and valid to be used as screening tools for hearing loss in the Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking elderly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Chi Shan Kam
- Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, Taipo, Hong Kong
| | - Christine Hiu Tung Fu
- Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, Taipo, Hong Kong
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Ng ML, Tsang GCK. The Lombard effect associated with Chinese male alaryngeal speech. Int J Speech Lang Pathol 2019; 21:584-592. [PMID: 30732483 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2018.1551932] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2018] [Revised: 11/14/2018] [Accepted: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Objective: Alaryngeal speech shows marked reduction in vocal intensity, resulting in reduced intelligibility. Lombard effect, speaking with background noise has been found to boost speakers' intensity. The study investigated oesophageal (ES), tracheoesophageal (TE) and electrolaryngeal (EL) speech production under quiet and noisy background conditions to determine if the Lombard effect is still present after laryngectomy.Method: Fifteen laryngeal and thirty-seven alaryngeal speakers who were native speakers of Cantonese were recruited and instructed to read aloud a Cantonese passage under two background conditions: quiet and 100 dB background noise conditions.Result: Significant increase in vocal intensity was found in all speaker types under the noise condition. In addition, perceived intelligibility ratings provided by naïve Cantonese listeners revealed that the overall intelligibility under noise was improved for TE and laryngeal speakers, but not for ES and EL speakers, when compared with quiet condition.Discussion and conclusion: Results confirmed that the Lombard effect is still present after total laryngectomy. However, intelligibility may not always be improved with increased vocal loudness. Improved intelligibility was only observed for TE and laryngeal speakers, but not ES and EL speakers. Clinical implications for the use of the Lombard effect in post-laryngectomy speech rehabilitation are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manwa L Ng
- Speech Science Laboratory, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Gloria C K Tsang
- Speech Science Laboratory, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE The present study examined and compared the Lombard effect among laryngeal and alaryngeal speakers including esophageal, tracheoesophageal, pneumatic artificial laryngeal, electrolaryngeal speakers of Cantonese. The subsequent change in intelligibility was also examined. METHODS A total of 52 native Cantonese-speaking laryngeal and alaryngeal speakers (10 laryngeal , 8 laryngeal , 13 electrolaryngeal , 11 esophageal, and 10 tracheoesophageal) participated in a reading task involving three 10-syllable Cantonese sentences under 10 background conditions: quiet, 60 dB, 65 dB, 70 dB, 75 dB, 80 dB, 85 dB, 90 dB, 95 dB, and 100 dB white background noise. Speech intelligibility associated with speaking conditions were evaluated by five naïve Cantonese speakers. RESULTS Output intensity was significantly increased in all speaker types under all nine noisy background conditions when compared with the quiet condition. However, the amount of increase was different for different modes of phonation. In addition, significant difference in speech intelligibility between laryngeal and alaryngeal speakers was found at all conditions, but not among any alaryngeal speech. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The Lombard reflex is still present after total laryngectomy. Yet, different alaryngeal speech was associated with different amount of loudness change, and subsequent improvement in intelligibility was not observed.
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Kong APH, Law SP. Cantonese AphasiaBank: An annotated database of spoken discourse and co-verbal gestures by healthy and language-impaired native Cantonese speakers. Behav Res Methods 2019; 51:1131-1144. [PMID: 29693232 PMCID: PMC6200664 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-018-1043-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
This article reports the construction of a multimodal annotated database of spoken discourse and co-verbal gestures by native healthy speakers of Cantonese and individuals with language impairment: the Cantonese AphasiaBank. This corpus was established as a foundation for aphasiologists and clinicians to use in designing and conducting research investigations into theoretical and clinical issues related to acquired language disorders in Chinese. Details in terms of the purpose, structure, and levels of annotation of the database (containing part-of-speech-annotated orthographic transcripts with Romanization and the corresponding videos) are described. The discussion presents the challenges of building a spoken database of a language that is not linguistically well-researched and that does not have a standardized written form for many of its lexical items, as well as presenting how these issues were addressed. Most importantly, the article highlights the potential of Cantonese AphasiaBank as a powerful research tool for linguists and psycholinguists.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anthony Pak-Hin Kong
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Central Florida, Room 106, Health and Public Affairs II, Orlando, FL, 32816-2215, USA.
| | - Sam-Po Law
- Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong SAR
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Tam MHC, Lau DKY. Modified semantic feature analysis for anomia: a single case study. Clin Linguist Phon 2019; 33:949-964. [PMID: 30907157 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2019.1594382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2019] [Revised: 03/06/2019] [Accepted: 03/08/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Semantic feature analysis (SFA) is a treatment approach designed for patients with lexical retrieval difficulty caused by semantic deficits. During training, a structured framework (e.g. requiring the patient to name the category, function, and colour of the target items) is usually provided to facilitate the patient in thinking of the semantic features of the target items. Nevertheless, the use of a structured framework potentially limits the variety of semantic features activated for lexical retrieval. This study investigated the effectiveness of modified SFA training to address this potential limitation. An odd-man-out task was carried out in the modified SFA training with an anomic patient with impaired access to the phonological output lexicon. The task aimed to encourage a detailed comparison of semantic features among items in the same category. It is hypothesized that activations of more distinctive semantic features belonging to the target items will result in greater extent of generalizations in the lexical processing. The patient's abilities in naming semantic features at the beginning and at the end of each treatment session were compared. Besides, accuracy and error patterns in oral and written naming in the initial and post-treatment assessment were also compared. The results showed a significant increase in the number of semantic features retrieved within treatment sessions. Moreover, a significant improvement in oral picture naming was also observed subsequent to the modified SFA training. Finally, the results of the error analyses further supported that the modified SFA was effective in promoting overall lexical processing. The findings indicated that both quantity and distinctiveness of concepts activated in the semantic system are essential to effective lexical retrieval. Theoretical and clinical implications were also discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Dustin Kai-Yan Lau
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong SAR
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Abstract
The aim of this study was to develop a children's version of the Cantonese
Hearing in Noise Test (CHINT-C). This was accomplished in two stages. First, a
total of 120 sentences understood by children aged 6-7 years were selected from
the original pool of CHINT sentences and were grouped into 12 lists, each
containing 10 sentences composed of 10 characters. Following this, 260 primary
and secondary school children, with ages ranging from 6 to 17 years, and 21
adults of age 18 or older were administered the CHINT-C to determine its
reliability/validity, normative data, and age-specific correction factors. The
result showed good interlist reliability, and test–retest reliability for the
CHINT-C. The speech perception skills assessed using the CHINT-C do not reach
adult level until after 11-13 years of age. Correction factors were established
that could be used to determine age-specific norms for the evaluation of speech
intelligibility of children in various sound fields.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lena L N Wong
- 1 Clinical Hearing Sciences Laboratory, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yuan Chen
- 2 Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Kam P Leung
- 1 Clinical Hearing Sciences Laboratory, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Li SYW, Tse MK, Brecknell B, Sanderson PM. Spearcon Sequences for Monitoring Multiple Patients: Laboratory Investigation Comparing Two Auditory Display Designs. Hum Factors 2019; 61:288-304. [PMID: 30260675 DOI: 10.1177/0018720818797502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The aim was to compare the effectiveness of two auditory displays, implemented with spearcons (time-compressed speech), for monitoring multiple patients. BACKGROUND Sequences of sounds can convey information about patients' vital signs, such as oxygen saturation (SpO2) and heart rate (HR). We tested whether participants could monitor five patients using spearcon-based sound sequences. METHOD A 2 × 3 within-subjects design was used. The first factor was interface, with two levels: the ALL interface used spearcons to convey vital signs for all five patients, whereas the ABN (abnormal) interface represented patients who had normal vital signs with a low-pitched single-tone sound and patients who had at least one abnormal vital sign with spearcons. The second factor was the number of patients who had at least one abnormal vital sign: there were one, two, or three such patients in each monitoring sequence. Participants were 40 nonclinicians. RESULTS Participants identified abnormal patients' SpO2 and HR levels and located abnormal patients in the sound sequence more accurately with the ABN interface than the ALL interface. Accuracy declined as the number of abnormal patients increased. Participants associated ABN with easier identification of vital signs, resulting in higher ratings of confidence and pleasantness compared with ALL. CONCLUSION Sequences of spearcons may support effective eyes-free monitoring of multiple patients. APPLICATION Sequences of spearcons may be useful in monitoring multiple patients and the underlying design principles may extend to monitoring in other domains such as industrial process control or control of multiple autonomous vehicles.
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Huang J, Pickering MJ, Chen X, Cai Z, Wang S, Branigan HP. Does language similarity affect representational integration? Cognition 2019; 185:83-90. [PMID: 30677543 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.01.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2018] [Revised: 11/29/2018] [Accepted: 01/04/2019] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
Previous studies have suggested that multilingual speakers do not represent their languages entirely separately but instead share some representations across languages. To determine whether sharing is affected by language similarity, we investigated whether participants' tendency to repeat syntax across languages was affected by language similarity. In three cross-linguistic structural priming experiments, trilingual Mandarin-Cantonese-English participants heard a sentence in Cantonese or English (which they matched to a picture) and then described a dative event in Mandarin. When prime and target sentences involved different actions (Experiment 1), structural priming was unaffected by language similarity. But when prime and target involved the same action (Experiments 2 and 3), priming was stronger between related languages (i.e., Cantonese to Mandarin) than unrelated languages (i.e., English to Mandarin). Similar languages are not more integrated than dissimilar languages overall, but the representations that connect lexical and syntactic information are more closely integrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jian Huang
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, China
| | | | - Xuemei Chen
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, China
| | - Zhenguang Cai
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages/Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
| | - Suiping Wang
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, China.
| | - Holly P Branigan
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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Zheng Y, Wu Q, Su F, Fang Y, Zeng J, Pei Z. The Protective Effect of Cantonese/Mandarin Bilingualism on the Onset of Alzheimer Disease. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2018; 45:210-219. [PMID: 29886485 DOI: 10.1159/000488485] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2018] [Accepted: 03/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Several studies have found that bilingualism can delay the age of onset of Alz-heimer disease (AD). The interpretation of these findings is that switching between two languages can enhance cognitive reserve. However, some studies have provided inconsistent results. Diverse language pairs used by the bilinguals in different studies may contribute to the discrepancies. Cantonese and Mandarin are widely used in southern China, and regarded as bilingualism. The present study aims to determine if Cantonese/Mandarin bilingualism can delay the onset of AD. METHODS The data of 129 patients diagnosed with probable AD, including 48 Cantonese monolinguals, 20 Mandarin monolinguals, and 61 Cantonese/Mandarin bilinguals were analyzed. RESULTS Cantonese/Mandarin bilinguals were found to have an older age at AD onset, and older age at the first clinic visit than Mandarin monolinguals and Cantonese monolinguals. Both Mandarin monolinguals and Cantonese/Mandarin bilinguals had a higher education level and higher occupation status than the Cantonese monolinguals. Mandarin monolinguals did not differ from Cantonese/Mandarin bilinguals significantly in years of education and occupation status. The multiple linear regression analyses indicated that Cantonese/Mandarin bilingualism can delay the onset of AD independently. CONCLUSION Constantly speaking both Cantonese and Mandarin from at least early adulthood can delay the onset of AD.
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