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6. General Discussion 15
6.1 Summary and Key Observations 15
6.2 Implications 15
6.2.1 Implication for Word Segmentation 15
6.2.2 Implication for All Language Regularities 15
6.2.3 Implication for Language Teaching 16
6.3 Limitation and Possible Further Study 16
7. Conclusion 18
Appendix 19
References 20
1. Introduction
Word boundary finding is of much significance to disambiguate sound. However, it is well-known that speech input lacks clear and reliable markers of word boundaries (Cole & Jakimik, 1980). Concerning about this problem, Mattys, White, & Melhorn (2005) put forward that both characteristics of the speech signal and lexical-sentential knowledge can affect the context of word segmentation. Signal-driven characteristics include sub-lexical cues probabilistically associated with word boundaries, e.g., allophonic or phonotactic regularities, as well as prosodic cues (e.g., pitch and timing), such as lexical stress and phrasal boundaries (L.C. Dilley et al.2010). Knowledge-driven processes include the use of lexical-semantic knowledge and syntactic expectations (Mattys, Melhorn, & White, 2007). In addition, Mattys, White, et al. (2005) and Mattys et al. (2007) had confirmed the contribution of knowledge-driven process to word segmentation, while omitting the signal-driven characteristics, yet may be important. Fortunately, later, lots of prior phonetics and phonology literature had confirmed word stress which is signal-driven characteristics and proximal to the segmentation point can facilitate listeners to distinguish words. And then Dilley and McAuley (2008) also paid special attention to signal-driven factor and suggested that distal rhythm (duration) can facilitate English adults to distinguish final words in a continuous sequence.
However, even if some of the prior researches had approved that both the proximal duration and distal duration can influence listeners to distinguish the sound, there are fewer investigation to confirm the similar regulations among different language condition, such as Chinese. Likewise, fewer of researches have made an interesting comparative investigation between the effect of proximal rhythm and distal rhythm on sound segmentation. Thus, the present study was mainly to verify whether there were approximate language findings on the Chinese language condition with the effect of distal rhythm, specifically the different duration. Meanwhile, there came up with a comparative study between the proximal rhythm and distal rhythm to find out an interesting conclusion.
Here are two research questions remain to be answered:
1) Can distal rhythm facilitate Chinese sound segmentation?
2) Are there any difference between the effect of distal rhythm and proximal rhythm on sound segmentation?
Concerning the research questions above, three experiments partly imitated from experiments of Dilley and McAuley (2008) were manipulated, while narrowing the independent variable prosodic rhythm into three types of changeable duration, including long duration, middle duration and short duration. Three goals are mainly expected to be reached. The first goal is preliminarily to confirm the effect of lexical duration (proximal rhythm) on segmentation and the rough range of duration that listeners recognize words clearly. The second goal is to find out the effect of distal rhythm on sound segmentation and also compared the effect of proximal rhythm and distal rhythm. The third is to find out the rough range of duration that listeners could segment the word clearly in a continuous sequence.