Understanding Prosodic Focus Marking in Mandarin Chinese
- This study investigated whether Mandarin speakers interpret prosodic information as focus markers in a sentence-picture verification task. Previous production studies have shown that both Mandarin-speaking adults and Mandarin-speaking children mark focus by prosodic information (Ouyang and Kaiser in Lang Cogn Neurosc 30(1-2):57-72, 2014; Yang and Chen in Prosodic focus marking in Chinese four-and eight-year-olds, 2014). However, while prosodic focus marking did not seem to affect sentence comprehension in adults Mandarin-speaking children showed enhanced sentence comprehension when the sentence focus was marked by prosodic information in a previous study (Chen in Appl Psycholinguist 19(4):553-582, 1998). The present study revisited this difference between Mandarin speaking adults and children by applying a newly designed task that tested the use of prosodic information to identify the sentence focus. No evidence was obtained that Mandarin-speaking children (as young as 3years of age) adhered more strongly to prosodic information thanThis study investigated whether Mandarin speakers interpret prosodic information as focus markers in a sentence-picture verification task. Previous production studies have shown that both Mandarin-speaking adults and Mandarin-speaking children mark focus by prosodic information (Ouyang and Kaiser in Lang Cogn Neurosc 30(1-2):57-72, 2014; Yang and Chen in Prosodic focus marking in Chinese four-and eight-year-olds, 2014). However, while prosodic focus marking did not seem to affect sentence comprehension in adults Mandarin-speaking children showed enhanced sentence comprehension when the sentence focus was marked by prosodic information in a previous study (Chen in Appl Psycholinguist 19(4):553-582, 1998). The present study revisited this difference between Mandarin speaking adults and children by applying a newly designed task that tested the use of prosodic information to identify the sentence focus. No evidence was obtained that Mandarin-speaking children (as young as 3years of age) adhered more strongly to prosodic information than adults but that word order was the strongest cue for their focus interpretation. Our findings support the view that children attune to the specific means of information structure marking in their ambient language at an early age.…
Author details: | Hui-Ching ChenORCiD, Krizsta SzendroiORCiD, Stephen CrainORCiDGND, Barbara HöhleORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9580-9 |
ISSN: | 0090-6905 |
ISSN: | 1573-6555 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29651789 |
Title of parent work (English): | Journal of Psycholinguistic Research |
Subtitle (English): | Data from Children and Adults |
Publisher: | Springer |
Place of publishing: | New York |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2018/04/12 |
Publication year: | 2018 |
Release date: | 2021/04/14 |
Tag: | Focus; Information structure; Language acquisition; Mandarin Chinese; Prosody |
Volume: | 48 |
Issue: | 1 |
Number of pages: | 14 |
First page: | 19 |
Last Page: | 32 |
Funding institution: | German Exchange Academic Service (DAAD)Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD); DFGGerman Research Foundation (DFG) [SFB632]; ESF EURO-EXPRAG Research Network Program for Hohle and Szendroi; Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Programme of the European Union (IDEALAB) [2014-0685/001-001-EMJD] |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 41 Linguistik / 410 Linguistik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Green Open-Access |