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The Acquisition of Italian Consonant Sounds by Mandarin Chinese-Speaking Learners
Full text linkThe acquisition of Italian consonant sounds by Mandarin Chinese-speaking learners has hardly been empirically investigated. This doctoral dissertation aims to fill this gap by investigating three areas which have been documented to be problematic for Chinese leaners, that is, how Chinese learners acquire Italian voiced vs. voiceless stop consonant contrast, singleton vs. geminate consonant contrast, and lateral vs. rhotic consonant contrast.
In the first study, twenty Mandarin Chinese-speaking undergraduate students majoring in Italian, five native Italian and five native Mandarin speakers served as participants in a perception experiment; and an equal number of participants with the same language backgrounds served as participants in a production experiment. In the perception experiment, the participants had to identify the stimuli in three continua (i.e., bilabial, alveolar and velar) where voice onset time (VOT) values ranged from −50ms to 90ms in 10ms steps. In the production experiment, data were collected from a reading task in which the participants were asked to read the target words with word-initial stops in carrier-sentences; the VOT and closure durations were measured. The results show that, in perception, Chinese learners have difficulty differentiating between Italian voiced and voiceless stops; in production, Italian voiced rather than voiceless stops represent a challenge for Chinese learners.
The second study had ten first-year, ten second-year and ten third-year Chinese undergraduate students majoring in Italian and ten native Italian-speaking controls as participants. In the perception experiment, the participants had to identify ten Italian disyllabic minimal pairs contrasting in consonant length. In the production experiment, the participants were asked to read five out of the ten minimal pairs mentioned above; the duration values of the intervocalic consonants and the preconsonantal vowels were measured and converted into duration ratios for statistical analyses. The results show that, in both perception and production, Chinese learners can distinguish between the two consonant length categories in Italian to a certain extent, but not in a native-like manner. Also, the duration interplay between Italian consonants and preconsonantal vowels (i.e., longer vowels before singleton consonants and shorter vowels before geminate consonants) is entirely ignored by Chinese learners. Moreover, Chinese learners’ increased learning experience does not appear to enhance their acquisition of Italian consonant length contrast.
The participants of the third study were thirty Chinese learners of Italian with different learning experiences and ten native Italian speakers. In the perception experiment, the participants identified six Italian minimal pairs contrasting in /r-l/. In the production experiment, the participants read the six minimal pairs, and their productions were assessed by three native Italian-speaking raters. The results show that, in perception, Chinese learners have some difficulty differentiating between Italian /r-l/ contrast. In production, Chinese learners have more difficulty properly realizing Italian /r/ than /l/, and show the tendency to replace /r/ with /l/. Also, while Chinese learners’ production of Italian /r-l/ contrast varies with their increased learning experience, their perceptual accuracy remains unchanged.
All in all, this doctoral dissertation provides a detailed picture of how Chinese learners acquire the stop contrast, consonant length contrast, and /r-l/ contrast in Italian, showing that the three consonant contrasts pose acquisition difficulties for Mandarin Chinese-speaking learners. Moreover, the plausible reasons for these acquisition difficulties are discussed.The acquisition of Italian consonant sounds by Mandarin Chinese-speaking learners has hardly been empirically investigated. This doctoral dissertation aims to fill this gap by investigating three areas which have been documented to be problematic for Chinese leaners, that is, how Chinese learners acquire Italian voiced vs. voiceless stop consonant contrast, singleton vs. geminate consonant contrast, and lateral vs. rhotic consonant contrast.
In the first study, twenty Mandarin Chinese-speaking undergraduate students majoring in Italian, five native Italian and five native Mandarin speakers served as participants in a perception experiment; and an equal number of participants with the same language backgrounds served as participants in a production experiment. In the perception experiment, the participants had to identify the stimuli in three continua (i.e., bilabial, alveolar and velar) where voice onset time (VOT) values ranged from −50ms to 90ms in 10ms steps. In the production experiment, data were collected from a reading task in which the participants were asked to read the target words with word-initial stops in carrier-sentences; the VOT and closure durations were measured. The results show that, in perception, Chinese learners have difficulty differentiating between Italian voiced and voiceless stops; in production, Italian voiced rather than voiceless stops represent a challenge for Chinese learners.
The second study had ten first-year, ten second-year and ten third-year Chinese undergraduate students majoring in Italian and ten native Italian-speaking controls as participants. In the perception experiment, the participants had to identify ten Italian disyllabic minimal pairs contrasting in consonant length. In the production experiment, the participants were asked to read five out of the ten minimal pairs mentioned above; the duration values of the intervocalic consonants and the preconsonantal vowels were measured and converted into duration ratios for statistical analyses. The results show that, in both perception and production, Chinese learners can distinguish between the two consonant length categories in Italian to a certain extent, but not in a native-like manner. Also, the duration interplay between Italian consonants and preconsonantal vowels (i.e., longer vowels before singleton consonants and shorter vowels before geminate consonants) is entirely ignored by Chinese learners. Moreover, Chinese learners’ increased learning experience does not appear to enhance their acquisition of Italian consonant length contrast.
The participants of the third study were thirty Chinese learners of Italian with different learning experiences and ten native Italian speakers. In the perception experiment, the participants identified six Italian minimal pairs contrasting in /r-l/. In the production experiment, the participants read the six minimal pairs, and their productions were assessed by three native Italian-speaking raters. The results show that, in perception, Chinese learners have some difficulty differentiating between Italian /r-l/ contrast. In production, Chinese learners have more difficulty properly realizing Italian /r/ than /l/, and show the tendency to replace /r/ with /l/. Also, while Chinese learners’ production of Italian /r-l/ contrast varies with their increased learning experience, their perceptual accuracy remains unchanged.
All in all, this doctoral dissertation provides a detailed picture of how Chinese learners acquire the stop contrast, consonant length contrast, and /r-l/ contrast in Italian, showing that the three consonant contrasts pose acquisition difficulties for Mandarin Chinese-speaking learners. Moreover, the plausible reasons for these acquisition difficulties are discussed
The acquisition of Italian /r-l/ contrast by L1-Chinese learners
Full text linkThe acquisition of Italian /r-l/ contrast by L1-Chinese learners has hardly
been empirically investigated. This study aims to fill this gap. Thirty Chinese learners with different learning experiences and ten native Italian controls took part in a perception and a production experiment; their productions were assessed by three native Italian-speaking raters. The results show that, in perception, Chinese learners have some difficulty differentiating between Italian /r-l/ contrast. In production, Chinese learners have more difficulty properly realizing Italian /r/ than /l/, and show the tendency to replace /r/ with /l/. Also, while Chinese learners’ production of Italian /r-l/ contrast varies with their increased learning experience, their perceptual accuracy remains unchanged. This nonparallel development suggests a possible dissociation between the two speech modalities in L2 speech acquisition
Acquiring Italian stop consonants: A challenge for Mandarin Chinese-speaking learners
Full text linkThe acquisition of Italian stop consonants by Mandarin Chinese-speaking learners has hardly been
investigated. This study was designed to fill this gap. To investigate Chinese learners’ acquisition
patterns of Italian voiced and voiceless stops, a perception experiment and a production experiment
were conducted. Twenty Mandarin Chinese-speaking undergraduate students majoring in Italian,
five native Italian and five native Mandarin speakers served as participants in the perception
experiment; and an equal number of participants with the same language backgrounds served as
participants in the production experiment. In the perception experiment, the participants had
to identify the stimuli in three continua (i.e. bilabial, alveolar and velar) where voice onset time
(VOT) values ranged from −50 ms to 90 ms in 10 ms steps. In the production experiment, data
were collected from a reading task in which the participants were asked to read the target words
with word-initial stops in carrier-sentences; the VOT and closure durations were measured. The
results show that, in perception, Chinese learners have difficulty differentiating between Italian
voiced and voiceless stops; in production, Italian voiced rather than voiceless stops represent a
challenge for Chinese learners. The results are in line with the predictions made by the Perceptual
Assimilation Model-L2 (PAM-L2) and the Speech Learning Model (SLM), as well as with most
other studies focusing on the acquisition of stops of ‘true-voice languages’ by Chinese learners
How Do L1 Mandarin Chinese Learners Produce L2 Italian Singleton and Geminate Consonant Contrasts?
Full text linkThis study investigates L1 Mandarin Chinese - L2 Italian learners’ production of Italian singleton/geminate consonant contrast. 30 Chinese undergraduate students that varied in their Italian learning experience (10 first-year, 10 second-year and 10 third-year) and 10 native Italian speakers took part in a production experiment. They read, both in isolation and in carrier-sentences, 5 disyllabic minimal pairs contrasting in consonant length. Durations of target intervocalic consonants and preconsonantal vowels were measured and converted into duration ratios for statistical analyses. The results show that the Chinese
learners were able to produce short-long differences for Italian singleton vs. geminate consonants, though their duration ratios were significantly smaller than those of the native speakers. As for preconsonantal vowels, while the native Italian speakers alternated between short vowels before geminate consonants and long vowels before singletons, the Chinese learners did not distinguish between pre-singleton and pre-geminate vowel durations. Moreover, though the three groups of Chinese learners had different learning experiences, they did not differ significantly in their productions of Italian consonant length contrast. These results indicate that, for Chinese learners, the mastery of Italian consonant length contrast represents a challenge and that an increased learning experience may not help
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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