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Factors influencing generalization and maintenance of cross-category imitation of Mandarin regional variants

Yan, Qingyang
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500593003706543

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
Speakers adopt acoustic characteristics of others’ speech, a process known as phonetic imitation, and they also maintain and generalize imitation to novel words to which they have not been exposed. Relatively little, however, is known about what factors influence imitation generalization and maintenance, especially for cross-category variants. This dissertation focused on imitation of dialect-specific segmental variants in Jianshi Mandarin, and aimed to address three main research questions: (i) the role of automaticity vs. speakers’ control in mediating imitation generalization and maintenance; (ii) the levels of representational specificity at which cross-category imitation operates and generalizes, i.e., representations of monosyllabic words, syllables, phonemes, or features; and (iii) the relative contribution of exposure amount and variability to imitation generalization and maintenance beyond perceptual exposure. To explore the role of automaticity vs. speakers’ control, three types of post-exposure reading instructions were used as a way of manipulating participants’ conscious effort during post-exposure speech production: to read the words, to say the words like the person you heard, and to say the words in the way you normally say them. Participants consistently imitated the target variants during the shadowing block. In the post-exposure block, the most robust and consistent imitation generalization and maintenance effects were observed with the explicit imitation instruction. The read and not imitate instructions led to no or weak imitation generalization and maintenance, which were smaller in magnitude and consistency than in the imitation instruction condition. These results suggest that imitation generalization and maintenance involve both automatic and controlled aspects, and that speakers’ control plays a primary role and automaticity is secondary in these processes. Regarding representational specificity involved in imitation generalization, when participants were explicitly instructed to imitate, significant generalization effects were found for the following types of nonshadowed words: words with the same syllables but different orthography from the shadowed words, words with the same onsets + rimes but different tones, words with the same rimes but different onsets, words with the same onset + coda consonants but different vowels, words with the same coda but different onsets and vowels, and words with a different onset consonant within the same natural class. The results suggest that imitation generalization can occur at the syllable, onset + rime, phoneme combination (vowel + coda, onset + coda), phoneme (coda), and feature levels in Mandarin. Moreover, it was found that increased exposure amount and variability did not promote imitation maintenance; increased exposure amount alone also did not produce greater imitation generalization. Increased exposure variability facilitated imitation generalization, but not for all word types. Overall, increased exposure variability is more effective than increased exposure amount in generating stronger generalization, but its facilitative effect is limited. By investigating the cognitive, linguistic and situational factors that influence imitation maintenance and generalization, this study reveals the mechanisms that enable and constrain speakers to maintain and generalize imitation under different types of cognitive control and after various exposure environments. The current results also demonstrate that Mandarin syllables, phonemes, and features are representational units responsible for imitation generalization.
Cynthia Clopper (Advisor)
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (Committee Member)
Shari Speer (Committee Member)
257 p.
Linguistics
phonetic imitation; imitation generalization; imitation maintenance; cognitive control; automaticity; phonological representation; exposure amount; exposure variability; Mandarin speech processing; Mandarin regional variants

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Citations

  • Yan, Q. (2017). Factors influencing generalization and maintenance of cross-category imitation of Mandarin regional variants [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500593003706543

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yan, Qingyang. Factors influencing generalization and maintenance of cross-category imitation of Mandarin regional variants . 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500593003706543.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yan, Qingyang. "Factors influencing generalization and maintenance of cross-category imitation of Mandarin regional variants ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500593003706543

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1500593003706543
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© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Factors influencing generalization and maintenance of cross-category imitation of Mandarin regional variants by Qingyang Yan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.