Homophony and Phonological Contrasts in Novel Word Learning: A Visual World Eye-Tracking Study with Adult Native and Non-Native Speakers

• Author / Creator

  Bao, Wenfu

• This thesis used visual world eye-tracking to examine how adults from native and non-native backgrounds learn novel words that contain homophones and non-homophones, and vary in different types of phonological contrasts: consonant contrasts, tone contrasts, and consonant & tone contrasts. It also investigated whether brief periods of unoccupied rest following learning affect the outcome.
  Previous studies have reported that adult non-native learners have difficulties in acquiring Mandarin tones, but mostly based on speech perception and production findings. Despite some work using novel word learning tasks to explore Mandarin acquisition in non-native adults, few studies have explicitly used nonwords to directly compare learning of segmental and tonal contrasts by adult learners. Further, as a common phenomenon in human languages, homophony has been investigated in novel word learning tasks, but much less among adults when compared with infants and young children. In addition, evidence suggests that brief periods of unoccupied rest facilitate memory in a similar manner to sleep. However, little research has examined the role of rest in consolidation of novel word learning in both native and non-native learners.
  Thus, in this thesis, we studied 34 native Mandarin speakers and 34 native English speakers in a novel word learning task, which contained 28 novel words (seven homophones, 21 non-homophones) that integrated Mandarin segments and tones. During the task, participants learned novel words in a pair with the minimal difference in consonants, tones, or both. Then they were tested in two phases separated by a 15-minute break, during which participants either had an eyes-closed rest or completed a distractor task. In order to explore whether there was a visual world competition effect in the test phase following learning, the target was presented inthe visual array either with or without its competitor. Participants’ response accuracy and latencies in the two test phases, and eye movements in the second test phase were analyzed.
  Regarding the effect of participants’ language background, results suggest that in the test phase integrated with the learning, Mandarin speakers had significantly higher accuracy than English speakers. However, in the test phase following the training, different tendencies were shown in the two language groups for different types of phonological contrasts: English speakers were significantly more accurate on novel words involved with consonant contrasts than those involving tones, whereas Mandarin speakers did not show significant differences in accuracy between different phonological conditions. In terms of homophony learning, homophones had significantly higher accuracy than non-homophones across all participants. Moreover, Mandarin speakers processed homophones more slowly than non-homophones irrespective of phonological contrasts, though the difference was only significant for phonological conditions involving tones. In addition, only observations of English speakers lent support to the consolidation of novel word learning after brief periods of unoccupied rest. Lastly, our findings highlighted the competition effect in spoken word processing: when there was no competitor in the visual array, participants had significantly faster and more accurate responses, and more target looks.
  These findings have contributed to our understanding about novel word learning in adult native and non-native learners from various aspects, such as homophone acquisition, competition effects and the benefit of rest. However, future work is needed to assess the homophony learning pattern in a scenario where a greater proportion of homophones among novel words is used, and to explore novel word learning of Mandarin and the rest-induced memory enhancement in non- native learners from language backgrounds other than English.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • homophony
  • adults
  • phonological contrasts
  • novel word learning

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-w0rv-wd87

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.