Abstract
Chunks are multi-word sequences with independent meaning and function, or formulaic based on the intuition of native speakers. They are ubiquitous in our daily expressions and of various categories, including collocations, phrasal structures, conversational conventions, etc., and profoundly influence language use and acquisition.Chunks are suggested to be stored as a single unit in the mental lexicon, holistically restored and retrieved due to their frequent use and fixed internal structure. Previous studies have identified the processing advantages of chunks through psycholinguistic experiments of eye-movements and self-paced reading but did not provide direct evidence of the existence of holistic storage and processing. Meanwhile, researchers suggest that the psycholinguistic state of a speaker can be revealed by prosodic cues in continuous speech and propose phonological coherence of chunks, i.e., chunks are usually articulated within a single intonation contour and resistant to inner pauses and dysfluencies. Phonological coherence as a criterion to detect the holistic nature of multi-word sequences has been proved robust in the co-occurrence of intonation units and chunks in English spontaneous speech. However, previous studies on phonological coherence usually lacked consideration of chunk categories and did not consider the influence of speech styles on the realization of speech prosody and pause placement. Moreover, research on the prosodic realization of chunks is scarce in Mandarin.
Therefore, based on the hypothesis of holistic storage and retrieval and phonological coherence, this thesis aims to explore the processing issues of Mandarin chunks through their prosodic realization in spontaneous speech. It attempts to answer two major research questions:
1. Are chunks phonologically coherent in Mandarin spontaneous speech?
2. Are chunks holistically processed in Mandarin spontaneous speech?
Firstly, the study examined the relationship between chunks and intonation phrases and explored factors that affected their alignments. It further examined the influence of chunk category and speech genre on the co-occurrence of chunks and intonation phrases.
Secondly, the study investigated the co-occurrence of chunks and processing units, defined as the utterance sequences divided by pauses, and examined the pause placements before and in the middle of chunks. The study further explored the influence of chunk production on the co-occurrence of processing units and intonation units and discussed the effect of speech genre on the psycholinguistic processing of chunks.
The data for the current study selected Mandarin monologues in formal and informal settings with an effective length of 1 hour and 20 minutes for each. Two independent groups of judges were invited to extract the target units. Each group was naive about the research objectives, and the judges for chunk identification were unaware of the acoustic information of the data. Six Mandarin natives were first trained on chunk definition, chunk taxonomies, and identification criteria and then independently identified chunks by the transcribed texts without any indication of speech segmentation. Chunks were selected according to the agreement by at least four of the judges. Acoustic annotations of intonation phrases and intermediate phrases were done independently by a professional phonetician specialized in Mandarin phonetics. Pauses were annotated by the author of the thesis.
The findings on phonological coherence showed that, firstly, chunks were generally inclined to be placed within an intonation phrase, indicating that Mandarin chunks are phonological coherent. However, the ratio of total boundary alignment between chunks and intonation phrases was relatively low. The misalignments between chunks and intonation phrases were caused by structural and functional factors. Secondly, major chunk categories (collocations, frame constructions, and institutionalized expressions) co-occurred with intonation phrases in significantly different ways. Frame constructions were more likely to cross intonation phrase boundaries. In contrast, institutionalized expressions showed higher tendencies to align with intonation phrase boundaries. Subordinate chunk categories also showed significant differences in co-occurring with intonation phrases. Semi-fixed chunks, such as phrasal constraints, were more likely to cross intonation boundaries. This indicates that the chunk properties, including fixedness, grammatical level, continuity, and meaning opaqueness, significantly influenced the intonational encoding of chunks. Moreover, chunks tended to be situated in both formal and informal speech genres, and speech genre significantly influenced the co-occurrence of chunks and intonation phrases, as informal speech contained more total alignment cases. In contrast, formal speech had more chunks crossing the intonation phrase boundaries. This shows the critical effect of speech formality and discoursal topics on the phonological coherence of chunks. Meanwhile, major chunk categories exhibited significantly different co-occurrence patterns in the two speech genres. By examining subordinate chunk categories, only fixed collocations, direct collocations, phrasal constraints, and pragmatic markers showed a significant difference in co-occurrence with intonation phrases between genres. This indicates different ways of intonation encoding of these chunk categories under different speech genres and the universality of phonological coherence of the rest of the subordinate chunk categories across speech genres.
The study on holistic processing has found that, firstly, chunks were mainly contained within processing units. However, the total co-occurrence of chunks and processing units was relatively low, not supporting the claims that chunks are processing units in spontaneous speech production. Major chunk categories showed a significant difference in co-occurring with processing units, indicating different psycholinguistic processes among major chunk categories. Institutionalized expressions were mainly situated within processing units, and frame constructions showed higher possibilities of crossing the processing unit boundaries. In addition, subordinate chunk categories were found to co-occur with processing units in different patterns, indicating the influence of chunk properties of continuity and meaning transparency on the psycholinguistic processing of chunks. From the perspective of pause placement, major chunk categories differed significantly in pause placement before chunks, as frame constructions were more likely to receive grammatical pauses, indicating that different chunk categories undergo different psycholinguistic processes. However, major chunk categories showed no significant difference in the possibility of pre-chunk hesitation, demonstrating that the cognitive fluency of chunks is universal across chunk categories. Meanwhile, major chunk categories were significantly different in pause placement within chunks. Collocations and frame constructions received internal hesitations at different degrees, while no internal dysfluencies institutionalized expressions were observed. This again justifies the different psycholinguistic processes among chunk categories. Secondly, compared to intermediate phrases, when chunk production was involved, intonation phrases contained more total co-occurrence cases with processing units. This justifies intonation phrases as a more reliable domain of psycholinguistic processing in spontaneous speech production. In addition, chunk categories significantly influenced the co-occurrence of processing units and units of intonation, as the production of frame constructions led to more misalignment cases. These patterns were found in both levels of the intonation hierarchy. By examining hesitation placement, pre-chunk hesitations mainly occurred at the intonational boundaries, while internal chunk hesitations were more found within intonation phrases and intermediate phrases by contrast. This indicates that speakers tend to maintain phonological coherence in chunk production when encountering processing difficulties, which proves the psycholinguistic reality of chunks’ holisticity. Thirdly, chunks were inclined to be situated within one processing unit in the formal and informal speech data. Speech genre significantly influenced the co-occurrence of chunks and processing units, as chunks showed a higher rate of total co-occurrence with processing units in informal speech. By contrast, formal speech data exhibited more chunks crossing the processing unit boundaries. From the perspective of chunk categories, major chunk categories showed a higher rate of total co-occurrence with processing units in informal speech. In addition, only fixed collocations, phrasal constraints, and pragmatic markers were found to co-occur with processing units in significantly different patterns under different genres. Additionally, the formal and informal speech genre significantly differed in hesitation types, as formal speech had more filled pauses. This suggests that speech formality and discourse topics greatly influence the psycholinguistic processing of chunks and support the universality of holistic processing of chunks across speech genres.
To conclude, the current study has proved and explained the phonological coherence of Mandarin chunks in spontaneous speech from the perspectives of chunk categories and speech genre. Meanwhile, it provided empirical evidence of holistic processing from the approach combining prosodic and pause placement analysis. The study has furthered the hypothesis of phonological coherence by discussing the relationship among chunks, units of intonation, and processing units, which contributes to our understanding of mental processing patterns of speech production. The comprehensive approach of combining intonation analysis and pause analysis proves a valid alternative to probe into the mental processing of speech production. The findings of this study provide implications to theories on chunks and the syntactic-prosody interface and contribute to implications for the design of Mandarin instructions and teaching, as well as the study of natural language processing.
| Date of Award | 7 Sept 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Hua Chen (External Supervisor) & Bin LI (Supervisor) |