| Author: | Kong, Deran |
| Title: | Subject-object asymmetry in native and non-native speakers’ comprehension and production of Mandarin relative clauses |
| Advisors: | Kim, Sun-A (CBS) Hsu, Yu-yin (CBS) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Mandarin dialects -- Study and teaching Chinese language -- Grammar, Generative Grammar, Comparative and general -- Relative clauses Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies |
| Pages: | xvi, 196 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | This thesis investigates the asymmetry between Mandarin Chinese (hereafter Mandarin) subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) and object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs). This topic has garnered extensive debate in the literature, but the findings are inconsistent, with evidence mainly from native speakers’ comprehension. Aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of this topic and to capture both the comprehension and production of Mandarin relative clauses (RCs), this study designed a sentence reading experiment as a measure of comprehension and a picture description experiment as a measure of production, and recruited both native (N = 62) and non-native (native Cantonese, hereafter, L1-Cantonese: N = 63, with advanced to near-native proficiency level; native Korean, hereafter, L1-Korean: N = 72, with intermediate-high to advanced proficiency level) speakers to participate in the experiments. Three research questions were set as follows: 1) Is there an SRC or an ORC advantage in native and non-native speakers’ comprehension and production of Mandarin RCs? 2) Do working memory (WM) capacity and processing load modulate SRC-ORC asymmetry in native and non-native speakers’ processing of Mandarin RCs? 3) What are the similarities and differences between native and non-native speakers’ processing? The following results were found. First, the sentence reading experiment revealed an ORC advantage in both native and non-native speakers’ comprehension of Mandarin RCs, reflected by faster eye-tracking measures, shorter response times to the comprehension questions, and higher accuracy rates for the comprehension questions (only in L1-Korean learners). The results of the picture description experiment used to examine production were mixed: all three groups of participants had shorter response latencies to the SRC condition, but L1-Korean learners’ accuracy rates were higher in the ORC condition, suggesting that both native and non-native speakers perceived SRCs as cognitively less demanding to produce, but forming target-like SRCs accurately was more challenging than ORCs for L1-Korean learners. Second, the modulatory effects of WM capacity and processing load on SRC-ORC asymmetry were observed. In native Mandarin speakers, the SRC-ORC asymmetry was more salient in individuals with lower WM capacity. In non-native speakers, increased WM capacity and decreased processing load led to more native-like processing patterns. Finally, in general, nonnative speakers’ preference for Mandarin SRCs and ORCs resembled that of native speakers, but some discrepancies between native and non-native processing still exist. In the sentence reading experiment, the ORC advantage was found in both early and late eye-tracking measures in the RC region in native speakers. In contrast, in non-native speakers, this effect was only significant in late eye-tacking measures but was shown in all three regions. Moreover, the SRCORC asymmetry was expressed in the accuracy rates of non-native speakers who were less proficient in Mandarin, but had a ceiling effect in the native group. These results have theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications. The divergent outcomes observed in relation to comprehension and production suggest that multiple factors impact the processing of Mandarin RCs interdependently. Consequently, the asymmetry between SRCs and ORCs in Mandarin cannot be attributed to a single theory alone and a comprehensive explanation to it is more appropriate. The similarities in processing patterns between native and non-native groups indicate that second language (L2) processing of Mandarin RCs can be native-like, at least in L2 learners with intermediate-high and above levels of proficiency. This highlights the validity of extending psycholinguistic theories of L1 processing to L2 research. The results also emphasise the role of individual differences in both native and non-native processing, with WM capacity exhibiting modulate effects on SRC-ORC asymmetry. In methodology, eye-tracking is shown to be powerful and necessary for investigating the reading of Mandarin RCs, and response latency is identified as an appropriate measure, in addition to accuracy rate, for detecting SRC-ORC asymmetry in production. Finally, the findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 learners, as the head-final feature of Mandarin RCs needs to be stressed, and ORCs can be introduced first to serve as a grammatical scaffold for more complex types of RCs. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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