Children's use of phonological information in ambiguity resolution: a view from Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

How do children develop the mapping between prosody and other levels of linguistic knowledge? This question has received considerable attention in child language research. In the present study two experiments were conducted to investigate four- to five-year-old Mandarin-speaking children's sensitivity to prosody in ambiguity resolution. Experiment 1 used eye-tracking to assess children's use of stress in resolving structural ambiguities. Experiment 2 took advantage of special properties of Mandarin to investigate whether children can use intonational cues to resolve ambiguities involving speech acts. The results of our experiments show that children's use of prosodic information in ambiguity resolution varies depending on the type of ambiguity involved. Children can use prosodic information more effectively to resolve speech act ambiguities than to resolve structural ambiguities. This finding suggests that the mapping between prosody and semantics/pragmatics in young children is better established than the mapping between prosody and syntax.

Studies at the interface of child language and models of language acquisition

“…This positive finding was uncovered in recent experimental investigations with children acquiring Mandarin Chinese (Zhou & Crain, 2010). Mandarin is a wh-in situ language.…”

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language

“…The visual world paradigm, compared with other psycholinguistic techniques, has several unique advantages. First, the visual world paradigm can be used in a wide of populations, including those who cannot read and/or who cannot overtly give their behavioral responses, such as preliterate children 40,41,42,43,44,45 , elderly adults 46 , and patients (e.g., aphasics)…”

An eye-tracking study examining the role of question-answer congruency in children’s comprehension of only: A preliminary report

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“…Thus, under a spreading error, it is predicted that children will show increased fixations to a competitor object (e.g., the box) rather than the competitor character. However, as in Zhou et al (2012), it is also possible that eye movement data will reveal qualitatively similar processing patterns for adults and children while resulting in similar or different judgment patterns.…”