Invited talks & workshops

open science
Open Science in Linguistics and Beyond

Cong Zhang

ReproducibiliTea
Newcastle University, UK, 2024

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I will use a few cases from my work to illustrate how open science can be achieved in linguistics, a social science/humanities subject. Furthermore, how we can better promote open science in disciplines like linguistics will be discussed.
@conference{zhang2024OpenScience, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Open Science in Linguistics and Beyond}, booktitle = {ReproducibiliTea}, year = {2024}, keyword = {invited}, location = {Newcastle University, UK} }
keynote
The Melodious Speech: Tone, Intonation, and Beyond

Cong Zhang

15th Newcastle & Northumbria Postgraduate Conference in Language and Linguistics
Northumbria University, UK, 2024

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Speech prosody, often regarded as the melodious aspect of language, plays a vital role in communication across different languages. In this talk, I will demonstrate what speech prosody is and how it is produced and perceived during our daily interactions. Different languages utilise speech prosody in different ways. In tonal languages, where melodies convey lexical meanings through lexical tones, the addition of sentence-level prosody, intonation, further complicates the linguistic dynamics. I will illustrate how these elements intertwine to shape the melodic quality of speech by delving into the interaction between tones and intonation. Furthermore, I will explore the application of prosody in automated clinical assessment for conditions such as aphasia and Mild Cognitive Impairment, even at an early stage. By synthesising findings from diverse research endeavours, this presentation aims to further our understanding of speech prosody and its relevance in linguistic analysis and clinical practice.
@conference{zhang2024NNPCiLL, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {The Melodious Speech: Tone, Intonation, and Beyond}, booktitle = {15th Newcastle & Northumbria Postgraduate Conference in Language and Linguistics}, year = {2024}, keyword = {invited}, location = {Northumbria University, UK} }
clinical
Speech Prosody in Clinical Speech

Cong Zhang

Computational Neurology, Neuroscience & Psychiatry Lab
Newcastle University, UK, 2024

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Speech prosody, often regarded as the melodious aspect of language, plays a vital role in communication across different languages. In this talk, I will begin by offering a brief overview of speech prosody and its relevance to clinical research. Next, I will talk about the investigation of how lexical tones and intonation interact. Furthermore, I will demonstrate the potential of prosody research in enhancing automated clinical assessments for conditions such as latent aphasia and Mild Cognitive Impairment.
@conference{zhang2024CNNP, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Speech Prosody in Clinical Speech}, booktitle = {Computational Neurology, Neuroscience & Psychiatry Lab}, year = {2024}, keyword = {invited}, location = {Newcastle University, UK} }
career
Panel Discussion on Industrial Career

Cong Zhang

Speech Science Forum
UCL, UK, 2024

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This panel host several speakers who have transitioned from academia to industry. Speakers share their experiences and the lessons they learned throughout their professional careers.
@conference{zhang2024UCL, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Panel Discussion on Industrial Career}, booktitle = {Speech Science Forum}, year = {2024}, keyword = {invited}, location = {UCL, UK} }
inclusive
Towards more inclusive linguistics research and application

Cong Zhang

Language and Linguistics Guest Speaker Seminar
Newcastle University, UK, 2023

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This talk will address the issue of imbalanced development in linguistics between well-resourced and under-resourced languages. One of the primary reasons for this imbalance is the lack of research tools and resources for under-resourced languages, including for data collection, analysis, and processing. This can make it challenging for linguists to conduct research on under-resourced languages, as they may not have access to the same level of technology and infrastructure that is available for well-resourced languages. Addressing this issue is an essential step towards promoting inclusivity in the field of linguistics. In this talk, I will present some research findings, tools, and resources that have been developed to facilitate linguistic research on under-resourced languages, including options for remote phonetic data collection, an automatic phonetic recogniser and aligner which can be trained with data from different language varieties, and a grapheme-to-phoneme modelling framework and relevant resources, which can help researchers work with under-resourced languages.
@conference{zhang2023newcastle, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Towards more inclusive linguistics research and application}, booktitle = {Language and Linguistics Guest Speaker Seminar}, year = {2023}, keyword = {invited}, location = {Newcastle University, UK} }
tone-intonation
Kaleidoscopic boundary tones

Cong Zhang

Linguistics Circle Series
University of Edinburgh, UK, 2022

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Both lexical tone and intonation are mainly realised through pitch modulation. This often causes the misunderstanding of tonal languages having no intonation or limited intonation. In fact, tonal languages can have more complex prosodic patterns than expected. In this talk, I will present how different types of boundary tones – floating boundary tone and actual boundary tones (mono-tonal, bi-tonal, and more) – can be used for a range of linguistic and para-linguistic functions in Tianjin Mandarin and Standard Mandarin.
@conference{zhang2022edinburgh, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Kaleidoscopic boundary tones}, booktitle = {Linguistics Circle Series}, year = {2022}, keyword = {invited}, location = {University of Edinburgh, UK} }
tone-intonation
Tone-intonation interaction: boundary tones in Mandarin varieties

Cong Zhang

Phonetics and Phonology Seminar
University of Cambridge, UK, 2022

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Both lexical tone and intonation are mainly realised through pitch modulation. This often causes the misunderstanding of tonal languages having no intonation or limited intonation. In fact, tonal languages can have more complex prosodic patterns than expected. In this talk, I will present how different types of boundary tones – floating boundary tone and actual boundary tones (mono-tonal, bi-tonal, and more) – can be used for a range of linguistic and para-linguistic functions in Tianjin Mandarin and Standard Mandarin.
@conference{zhang2022cambridge, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Tone-intonation interaction: boundary tones in Mandarin varieties}, booktitle = {Phonetics and Phonology Seminar}, year = {2022}, keyword = {invited}, location = {University of Cambridge, UK} }
speech tech
Applying Linguistics Knowledge to Speech Technology

Cong Zhang

AAII Technical Lectures Series
Assam Artificial Intelligence Initiative, India, 2022

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Speech technology has been advancing at an unprecedented speed due to the revitalisation of machine learning and ever-so-growing available data. Whilst speech technology deals with language, linguistic knowledge is used less and less in the process. However, using what we already know about languages may give us an advantage over the black-box algorithms. Making use of up-to-date and suitable linguistics knowledge can reduce the amount of data needed, save time and costs, allow the models to be more interpretable and controllable, and eventually may lead to new methodological development. In this talk, I will talk about how linguistics knowledge can be applied to ASR and TTS in various ways, in hope of bridging the gap between linguistics and engineering.
@conference{zhang2022aaii, presentation = {https://youtu.be/PDFzjlZKbeE}, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Applying Linguistics Knowledge to Speech Technology}, booktitle = {AAII Technical Lectures Series}, year = {2022}, keyword = {invited}, location = {Assam Artificial Intelligence Initiative, India} }

tutorial

From Sound to Numbers: An Introduction to Praat

Cong Zhang

Faculty of Life Sciences and Education
University of South Wales, UK, 2022

@conference{zhang2022usw,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {From Sound to Numbers: An Introduction to Praat},
  booktitle = {Faculty of Life Sciences and Education},
  year = {2022},
  keyword = {invited},
  location = {University of South Wales, UK}
}

tutorial
Trends in Intonation Research & Remote Speech Data Collection

Cong Zhang, Amalia Arvaniti, Kathleen Jepson, and Katherine Marcoux

Interspeech 2021 Tutorial
Brno, Czechia[online], 2021

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This tutorial covers the theory and practical applications of intonation research. The following three topics will be introduced to speech technology engineers and researchers new to the field of intonation and prosody: a. the fundamentals of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonational phonology (AM), a widely accepted phonological framework of intonation; b. a range of automatic and manual annotation methods that can create fast or detailed transcriptions of prosody; c. state-of-the-art modelling techniques for explaining intonation.
@conference{zhang2021interspeech, presentation = {https://www.superlectures.com/interspeech2021/intonation-transcription-and-modelling-in-research-and-speech-technology-applications}, author = {Zhang, Cong and Arvaniti, Amalia and Jepson, Kathleen and Marcoux, Katherine}, title = {Trends in Intonation Research & Remote Speech Data Collection}, booktitle = {Interspeech 2021 Tutorial}, year = {2021}, keyword = {workshop}, location = {Brno, Czechia[online]} }

tone-intonation

Trends in Intonation Research & Remote Speech Data Collection

Cong Zhang

Research seminar
Nankai University, China, 2021

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@conference{zhang2021nankai,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Trends in Intonation Research & Remote Speech Data Collection},
  booktitle = {Research seminar},
  year = {2021},
  keyword = {invited},
  location = {Nankai University, China}
}

speech tech
Opportunities and Challenges in Developing AI Music

Cong Zhang

Panel discussion at Global Mobile Internet Conference
Guangzhou, China, 2021

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The panel discussion invited musicians, engineers, science, and business, to discuss the future of AI music. As the lead of AI music at Rokid Inc., I introduced the challenges faced by the research and development in generating AI singing voices, and outlined the unlimited potential in the future AI music market.
@conference{zhang2019ai, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Opportunities and Challenges in Developing AI Music}, booktitle = {Panel discussion at Global Mobile Internet Conference}, year = {2021}, keyword = {invited}, location = {Guangzhou, China} }

tone-intonation

Sentence Prosody in Tonal Languages: Production & Perception

Cong Zhang

Freie Universität Berlin
Berlin, Germany, 2017

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@conference{zhang2017berlin,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Sentence Prosody in Tonal Languages: Production & Perception},
  booktitle = {Freie Universität Berlin},
  year = {2017},
  keyword = {invited},
  location = {Berlin, Germany}
}

prosody

Speech Planning isn’t Planning a Speech: What We Plan When We Plan Speech Production

Cong Zhang

Subject Family Event
St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK, 2015

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@conference{zhang2015,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Speech Planning isn’t Planning a Speech: What We Plan When We Plan Speech Production},
  booktitle = {Subject Family Event},
  year = {2015},
  keyword = {invited},
  location = {St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK}
}

Conference presentations

2024

aphasia
Prosody of speech production in latent aphasia

Cong Zhang, Tong Li, Gayle DeDe, and Christos Salis

62nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia
Nara, Japan, Oct 2024

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Latent aphasia is a mild aphasia type in which affected individuals perform within normal limits on clinical aphasia batteries. Identification of latent aphasia is challenging and very little is known about speech output in this aphasia type. To address these knowledge gaps, we examined: (1) how latent aphasia affects features of expressive prosody according to different word positions in utterances. (2) To investigate whether prosody markers can identify people with latent aphasia versus neurotypical controls. (3) To explore the potential of expressive prosody and demographic information in correctly classifying people with latent aphasia versus neurotypical controls.
@conference{zhang2024aphasiaAoA-c, title = {Prosody of speech production in latent aphasia}, author = {Zhang, Cong and Li, Tong and DeDe, Gayle and Salis, Christos}, year = {2024}, month = oct, location = {Nara, Japan}, booktitle = {62nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia} }
aphasia
Prosody of speech production in latent post-stroke aphasia

Cong Zhang, Tong Li, Gayle DeDe, and Christos Salis

Interspeech 2024
Kos, Greece, Sep 2024

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This study explores prosodic production in latent aphasia, a mild form of aphasia associated with left-hemisphere brain damage (e.g. stroke). Unlike prior research on moderate to severe aphasia, we investigated latent aphasia, which can seem to have very similar speech production with neurotypical speech. We analysed the f0, intensity and duration of utterance-initial and utterance-final words of ten speakers with latent aphasia and ten matching controls. Regression models were fitted to improve our understanding of this understudied type of very mild aphasia. The results highlighted varying degrees of differences in all three prosodic measures between groups. We also investigated the diagnostic classification of latent aphasia versus neurotypical control using random forest, aiming to build a fast and reliable tool to assist with the identification of latent aphasia. The random forest analysis also reinforced the significance of prosodic features in distinguishing latent aphasia.
@conference{zhang2024aphasia-c, title = {Prosody of speech production in latent post-stroke aphasia }, author = {Zhang, Cong and Li, Tong and DeDe, Gayle and Salis, Christos}, year = {2024}, category = {oral}, month = sep, location = {Kos, Greece}, booktitle = {Interspeech 2024} }

syntax-prosody

The syntax-prosody interface in LFG: Revisiting Korean question focus

Stephen Jones, Yoolim Kim, and Cong Zhang

29th International Lexical Functional Grammar Conference
Arca, Ghana, Aug 2024

Bib PDF

@conference{jones2024syntax-c,
  author = {Jones, Stephen and Kim, Yoolim and Zhang, Cong},
  title = {The syntax-prosody interface in LFG: Revisiting Korean question focus},
  booktitle = {29th International Lexical Functional Grammar Conference},
  year = {2024},
  category = {oral},
  month = aug,
  location = {Arca, Ghana}
}

gamification

Gamifying phonetic data collection: an accent identification and attitude study

Cong Zhang, Yanyu Li, and Damar Hoogland

Colloquium of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (BAAP 2024)
Cardiff, UK, Mar 2024

Bib

@conference{gamifying-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong and Li, Yanyu and Hoogland, Damar},
  title = {Gamifying phonetic data collection: an accent identification and attitude study},
  booktitle = {Colloquium of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (BAAP 2024)},
  year = {2024},
  month = mar,
  location = {Cardiff, UK}
}

syntax-prosody

Perceiving the prosody of question focus scope in Korean

Stephen Jones, Yoolim Kim, and Cong Zhang

Attitudinal Meaning in Prosody Workshop
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, Feb 2024

Bib PDF

@conference{jones2024perceiving-c,
  author = {Jones, Stephen and Kim, Yoolim and Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Perceiving the prosody of question focus scope in Korean},
  booktitle = {Attitudinal Meaning in Prosody Workshop},
  year = {2024},
  category = {oral},
  month = feb,
  location = {Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany}
}

syntax-prosody
The role of prosody in ambiguity resolution in Korean

Stephen Jones, Yoolim Kim, and Cong Zhang

Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting 2024
New York, USA, Jan 2024

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Prosody in Korean is associated with grammatical mood. We examine the phenomenon by which sentences that are ambiguous between statements, open and polar questions are disambiguated through prosodic cues. Some accounts rely on placement of accentual phrase boundaries, while others propose an expanded pitch range (Jun & Oh, 1996; Jones, 2016). We argue that a minimum degree of pitch expansion is required to convey focus; that — contra previous accounts — the left edge of pitch range expansion is more important; and that the pitch expansion duration is secondary to alignment of the edges of expanded pitch range and the scope of focus.
@conference{jones2024therole-c, author = {Jones, Stephen and Kim, Yoolim and Zhang, Cong}, title = {The role of prosody in ambiguity resolution in Korean}, booktitle = {Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting 2024}, year = {2024}, month = jan, location = {New York, USA} }

2023

syntax-prosody
Perceiving and modelling the scope of question focus in Korean

Stephen Jones, Yoolim Kim, and Cong Zhang

Speech Prosody and Beyond Workshop
Seoul, South Korea, Jun 2023

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This paper aims to more precisely specify the nature of pitch expansion in question focus in Korean, as a precursor to the computational modelling of a discriminative learning process based on prosodic cues. The work is important because it strengthens a potential account that allows formal links between prosody and syntactic analysis. In focusing on phenomena at the trailing edge of the scope of focus, it can be used alongside left-to-right statistical machine translation to improve the output of speech recognition systems, without requiring a full statistical parse of the input, and in speech generation systems to reduce the ambiguity of output.
@conference{jones2023perceiving-c, author = {Jones, Stephen and Kim, Yoolim and Zhang, Cong}, title = {Perceiving and modelling the scope of question focus in Korean}, booktitle = {Speech Prosody and Beyond Workshop}, year = {2023}, category = {oral}, month = jun, location = {Seoul, South Korea} }

clinical

Processing Acoustic Data for the Helicopter Project

Cong Zhang

Wales Innovation Fund COPD and Speech Breathing Workshop
Wales, UK, Jun 2023

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@conference{zhang2023processing-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Processing Acoustic Data for the Helicopter Project},
  booktitle = {Wales Innovation Fund COPD and Speech Breathing Workshop},
  year = {2023},
  month = jun,
  category = {oral},
  location = {Wales, UK}
}

redundancy
Language redundancy effects on F0: A preliminary controlled study

Cong Zhang, Catherine Lai, Ricardo Souza, Alice Turk, and Tina Bögel

Proceeding of 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
Prague, Czech Republic, Aug 2023

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Previous research suggests that words with a high level of language redundancy (i.e. recognition likelihood from familiarity and predictability based on syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic factors) have reduced acoustic salience, such as shorter duration and reduced vowels. The Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothesis proposes that acoustic salience is controlled via prosodic structure, and makes the prediction that parameters such as fundamental frequency should also be affected by language redundancy. This study investigates the relationship of F0 with lexical frequency, together with bigram (verb-adjective or adjective-noun) frequency and the ratio between these two bigram frequencies. Results from a carefully controlled experiment with quadruplets of minimal pairs suggests that language redundancy can affect fundamental frequency in English.
@conference{zhang2023language-redundancy-c, title = {Language redundancy effects on F0: A preliminary controlled study}, author = {Zhang, Cong and Lai, Catherine and Napoleão de Souza, Ricardo and Turk, Alice and Bögel, Tina}, booktitle = {Proceeding of 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences}, year = {2023}, month = aug, location = {Prague, Czech Republic} }

2022

speech tech
Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) Model: Evidence from multilingual Text-to-Speech

Cong Zhang, Huinan Zeng, Huang Liu, and Jiewen Zheng

The 18th Conference on Laboratory Phonology
Online, 23-25 jun 2022

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This study investigates whether the phonological features derived from the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon model can be applied in text-to-speech systems to generate native and non-native speech in English and Mandarin. The results supported that phonological features could be used as a feasible input system for languages in or not in the train data. The results lend support to FUL by presenting successfully synthesised output, and by having the output carrying a source-language accent when synthesising a language not in the training data. The TTS process stimulated second language acquisition process and thus also confirm FUL’s ability to account for acquisition.
@conference{zhang2022featurally-c, author = {Zhang, Cong and Zeng, Huinan and Liu, Huang and Zheng, Jiewen}, title = {Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) Model: Evidence from multilingual Text-to-Speech}, booktitle = {The 18th Conference on Laboratory Phonology}, year = {2022}, month = {23-25 Jun}, location = {Online} }
speech tech
ByT5 model for massively multilingual grapheme-to-phoneme conversion

Jian Zhu, Cong Zhang, and David Jurgens

Interspeech 2022
Incheon, Korea [online], 18-22 sep 2022

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In this study, we tackle massively multilingual grapheme-to-phoneme conversion through implementing G2P models based on ByT5. We have curated a G2P dataset from various sources that covers around 100 languages and trained large-scale multilingual G2P models based on ByT5. We found that ByT5 operating on byte-level inputs significantly outperformed the token-based mT5 model in terms of multilingual G2P. Pairwise comparison with monolingual models in these languages suggests that multilingual ByT5 models generally lower the phone error rate by jointly learning from a variety of languages. The pretrained model can further benefit low resource G2P through zero-shot prediction on unseen languages or provides pretrained weights for finetuning, which helps the model converge to a lower phone error rate than randomly initialized weights. To facilitate future research on multilingual G2P, we make available our code and pretrained multilingual G2P models at: https://github.com/lingjzhu/CharsiuG2P.
@conference{zhu2022byt5-g2p-c, title = {ByT5 model for massively multilingual grapheme-to-phoneme conversion}, author = {Zhu, Jian and Zhang, Cong and Jurgens, David}, year = {2022}, booktitle = {Interspeech 2022}, month = {18-22 Sep}, location = {Incheon, Korea [online]} }
speech tech
Phone-to-audio alignment without text: A Semi-supervised Approach.

Cong Zhang Jian Zhu, and David Jurgens

IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)
Singapore, Singapore, 22-27 may 2022

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The task of phone-to-audio alignment has many applications in speech research. Here we introduce two Wav2Vec2-based models for both text-dependent and text-independent phone-to-audio alignment. The proposed Wav2Vec2-FS, a semi-supervised model, directly learns phone-to-audio alignment through contrastive learning and a forward sum loss, and can be coupled with a pretrained phone recognizer to achieve text-independent alignment. The other model, Wav2Vec2-FC, is a frame classification model trained on forced aligned labels that can both perform forced alignment and text-independent segmentation. Evaluation results suggest that both proposed methods, even when transcriptions are not available, generate highly close results to existing forced alignment tools. Our work presents a neural pipeline of fully automated phone-to-audio alignment. Code and pretrained models are available at https://github.com/lingjzhu/charsiu.
@conference{zhu2022phone-c, author = {Jian Zhu, Cong Zhang and Jurgens, David}, title = {Phone-to-audio alignment without text: A Semi-supervised Approach.}, booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)}, year = {2022}, category = {oral}, month = {22-27 May}, location = {Singapore, Singapore} }
prosody
The many shapes of H*

Stella Gryllia, Amalia Arvaniti, Cong Zhang, and Katherine Marcoux

Speech Prosody
Lisbon, Portugal, 23-26 may, 2022

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We examined individual and task-related variability in the realization of Greek nuclear H* followed by L-L% edge tones. The accents (N = 748) were elicited from native speakers of Greek, producing scripted and unscripted speech, and examined using functional Principal Components Analysis. The accented vowel onset was used for landmark registration to capture accent shape and the alignment of the fall. The resulting PCs were analysed using LMEMs (fixed factors: speaker; task type (scripted, unscripted); accented syllable distance from the analysis window offset, to examine the effects of tonal crowding). Tonal scaling and the steepness of the fall (reflected in PC1 and PC2 respectively) changed by task in ways that differed across speakers. PC3, which captured accent shape, also varied by speaker, reflecting shape differences between a rise-fall and (the expected) plateau-plus-fall realization. Tonal crowding did not have consistent effects. In short, the overall accent shape and the alignment of the accentual fall varied by speaker and task. These results hint at substantial variability in tonal realization. At the same time, they indicate that tonal alignment is not as consistent as is sometimes portrayed and thus it should not be the sole criterion for tone categorization.
@conference{gryllia2022many-shape-c, author = {Gryllia, Stella and Arvaniti, Amalia and Zhang, Cong and Marcoux, Katherine}, booktitle = {Speech Prosody}, title = {{The many shapes of H*}}, year = {2022}, category = {oral}, month = {23-26 May,}, location = {Lisbon, Portugal} }
prosody
Disentangling emphasis from pragmatic contrastivity in the English H* ~L+H* contrast.

Amalia Arvaniti, Stella Gryllia, Cong Zhang, and Katherine Marcoux

Speech Prosody
Lisbon, Portugal, 23-26 may, 2022

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English H* and L+H* indicate new and contrastive information respectively, though some argue the difference between them is solely one of phonetic emphasis. We used (modified) Rapid Prosody Transcription to test these views. Forty-seven speakers of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) listened to 86 SSBE utterances and marked the words they considered prominent or emphatic. Accents (N = 281) were independently coded as H* or L+H* using phonetic criteria, and as contrastive or non-contrastive using pragmatic criteria. If L+H* is an emphatic H*, all L+H*s should be more prominent than H*s. If the accents mark pragmatic information, contrastivity should drive responses. Contrastive accents and L+H*s were considered more prominent than non-contrastive accents and H*s respectively. Individual responses showed different strategies: for some participants, all L+H*s were more prominent than H*s, for others, contrastive accents were more prominent than non-contrastive accents, and for still others, there was no difference between categories. These results indicate that a reason for the continuing debate about English H* and L+H* may be that the two accents form a weak contrast which some speakers acquire and attend to while others do not.
@conference{arvaniti2022disentangling-c, author = {Arvaniti, Amalia and Gryllia, Stella and Zhang, Cong and Marcoux, Katherine}, title = {Disentangling emphasis from pragmatic contrastivity in the English H* \textasciitilde L+H* contrast.}, booktitle = {Speech Prosody}, year = {2022}, month = {23-26 May,}, location = {Lisbon, Portugal} }

2021

prosody
Focus and accent in English.

Amalia Arvaniti, Stella Gryllia, Cong Zhang, and Katherine Marcoux

Dutch Phonetics Day (Dag van de Fonetiek)
Netherlands [online], 17 dec 2021

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Contrastive focus in English is marked with a rising accent (autosegmentally L+H*) and broad (all new) focus with a high accent (H*). However, inconclusive production and perception evidence supports the idea that L+H* is simply an emphatic version of H*, not phonologically distinct from it. We used Rapid Prosody Transcription to test these two views. Forty-seven speakers of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) listened to 86 SSBE utterances and marked the words they considered prominent or emphatic. Accents (N = 281) were independently coded as H* or L+H* using phonetic criteria, and as contrastive or non-contrastive using pragmatic criteria. If L+H* is an emphatic H*, L+H*s should be rated more prominent than H*s; if the accents encode a pragmatic distinction, contrastive accents should be rated more prominent than non-contrastive ones. The results showed effects of both accent and pragmatics (L+H* > H*; contrastive > non-contrastive) and no interaction. Contrastive L+H*s were rated most prominent, non-contrastive H*s least prominent, while non-contrastive L+H*s and contrastive H*s had average and almost identical ratings. Participants used different strategies: some focused on accent type, others on pragmatics, and still others made neither distinction. These results suggest that a reason for the continuing debate about H* and L+H* may be that the accents form a weak contrast which some speakers acquire and attend to while others do not. Similarly, researchers who focus on contrastive L+H* and non-contrastive H* see distinct categories, while those who focus on non-contrastive L+H*s and contrastive H*s tend to see a continuum.
@conference{arvaniti2021focus-c, author = {Arvaniti, Amalia and Gryllia, Stella and Zhang, Cong and Marcoux, Katherine}, title = {Focus and accent in English.}, booktitle = {Dutch Phonetics Day (Dag van de Fonetiek)}, year = {2021}, category = {oral}, month = {17 Dec}, location = {Netherlands [online]} }

tone-intonation

Procedures of Investigating Intonation Phonology in a Tonal Language.

Cong Zhang

6th Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory
London, UK [online], 16-18 dec 2021

Abs Bib HTML PDF

@conference{zhang2021procedures-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Procedures of Investigating Intonation Phonology in a Tonal Language.},
  booktitle = {6th Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory},
  year = {2021},
  category = {oral},
  month = {16-18 Dec},
  location = {London, UK [online]}
}

prosody

Comparing phonetic and pragmatic classifications of English H* and L+H*.

Cong Zhang, Kathleen Jepson, Katherine Marcoux, and Amalia Arvaniti

1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation 2021
Sonderborg, Denmark [online], 6-9 dec 2021

Bib HTML

@conference{zhang2021comparing-phonetic-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong and Jepson, Kathleen and Marcoux, Katherine and Arvaniti, Amalia},
  title = {Comparing phonetic and pragmatic classifications of English H* and L+H*.},
  booktitle = {1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation 2021},
  year = {2021},
  category = {oral},
  month = {6-9 Dec},
  location = {Sonderborg, Denmark [online]}
}

singing
Synchronising speech segments with musical beats in Mandarin and English singing.

Cong Zhang, and Jian Zhu

Interspeech 2021
Brno, Czechia [online], 30 aug - 3 sep 2021

Abs Bib HTML PDF Code Presentation

Generating synthesised singing voice with models trained on speech data has many advantages due to the models’ flexibility and controllability. However, since the information about the temporal relationship between segments and beats are lacking in speech training data, the synthesised singing may sound off-beat at times. Therefore, the availability of the information on the temporal relationship between speech segments and music beats is crucial. The current study investigated the segment-beat synchronisation in singing data, with hypotheses formed based on the linguistics theories of P-centre and sonority hierarchy. A Mandarin corpus and an English corpus of professional singing data were manually annotated and analysed. The results showed that the presence of musical beats was more dependent on segment duration than sonority. However, the sonority hierarchy and the P-centre theory were highly related to the location of beats. Mandarin and English demonstrated cross-linguistic variations despite exhibiting common patterns.
@conference{zhang2021synchronising-c, presentation = {https://www.superlectures.com/interspeech2021/synchronising-speech-segments-with-musical-beats-in-mandarin-and-english-singing-3-minutes-introduction}, author = {Zhang, Cong and Zhu, Jian}, title = {Synchronising speech segments with musical beats in Mandarin and English singing.}, booktitle = {Interspeech 2021}, year = {2021}, category = {oral}, month = {30 Aug - 3 Sep}, location = {Brno, Czechia [online]} }

prosody

H* and LH* in English and Greek.

Kathleen Jepson, Cong Zhang, Georg Lohfink, and Amalia Arvaniti

Phonetics and Phonology in Europe 2021
Barcelona, Spain [online], 21-23 jun 2021

Bib HTML PDF

@conference{jepson2021h-c,
  author = {Jepson, Kathleen and Zhang, Cong and Lohfink, Georg and Arvaniti, Amalia},
  title = {H* and LH* in English and Greek.},
  booktitle = {Phonetics and Phonology in Europe 2021},
  year = {2021},
  category = {oral},
  month = {21-23 Jun},
  location = {Barcelona, Spain [online]}
}

2020

recording
Speech data collection at a distance: Comparing the reliability of acoustic cues across homemade recordings.

Cong Zhang, Kathleen Jepson, Georg Lohfink, and Amalia Arvaniti

179th Annual Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
USA [online], 7-11 dec 2020

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Speech production data collection has been significantly impacted by COVID-19 restrictions. Sound-treated recording spaces and high-quality recording devices are inaccessible, and face-to-face interactions are limited. We investigated alternative recording methods that produce data suitable for phonetic analysis, and are accessible to people in their homes. We examined simultaneous recordings of pure tones at seven frequencies (50 Hz, every 100 Hz between 100 Hz and 600 Hz), and three repetitions of the primary cardinal vowels elicited from five trained speakers. Recordings were made using the ZOOM meeting application and non-lossy format smartphone applications (Awesome Voice Recorder, Recorder), comparing these with Zoom H6N reference recordings. F0, F1-5, and duration based on manual segmentation were measured. F0 is highly correlated between the three devices for vowels and tones. Lower formants are also significantly correlated though not as robustly. The upper formants showed more variation as reported in the literature. Both phone and ZOOM performed better for vowels than tones. Phone segmentation generated reliable duration values differing from H6N segmentation by ∼18 ms. However, irregular waveforms and filtering algorithm artefacts caused considerable differences for ZOOM (∼119 ms). Our preliminary study suggests phone recordings are a viable option for some phonetic studies (e.g., prosody). Future analysis of natural speech data will prove insightful.
@conference{zhang2020speech-c, author = {Zhang, Cong and Jepson, Kathleen and Lohfink, Georg and and Amalia Arvaniti}, title = {Speech data collection at a distance: Comparing the reliability of acoustic cues across homemade recordings.}, booktitle = {179th Annual Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America}, year = {2020}, month = {7-11 Dec}, location = {USA [online]} }
singing
Where does the beat fall? Speech-beat alignment in Mandarin and English singing.

Cong Zhang, and Charlotte A. Slocombe

179th Annual Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
USA [online], 7-11 dec 2020

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Text-to-sing generates singing from text input (i.e., music score with lyrics), from which only syllable-level speech-music alignment can be acquired. To enhance the text-to-sing models, more fine-grained phoneme-level information is needed. We therefore investigate the acoustic measurements of segments and their temporal relationship with music beats as an answer from a linguistics perspective. Two research questions are addressed: (1) Do beats align with syllable onsets or nuclear vowel onsets? (2) Do different types of consonants present different speech-beat alignment results? Unaccompanied singing by professional singers in two rhythmically dissimilar languages, English (15 songs) and Mandarin (25 songs), were analysed. Data were segmented manually into phonemes by a trained annotator; a music scholar independently labelled the beats. Preliminary results suggest that Mandarin songs strongly favour vowels as anchors for beats (66.7%) while only 52.9% of beats fall on vowels in English. Both languages show that the beats have a strong preference for the end of consonants and the beginning of vowels. Phoneme types also play a significant role in the speech-beat alignment distribution. Future modelling of the speech-beat alignment in singing and comparison with speech rhythm data will also contribute to linguistic rhythm theories.
@conference{zhang2020where-c, presentation = {https://osf.io/nzm9d}, author = {Zhang, Cong and Slocombe, Charlotte A.}, title = {Where does the beat fall? Speech-beat alignment in Mandarin and English singing.}, booktitle = {179th Annual Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America}, year = {2020}, category = {oral}, month = {7-11 Dec}, location = {USA [online]} }
singing
Segment Duration and Proportion in Mandarin Singing.

Cong Zhang, and Xinrong Wang

Speech Prosody 2020
Tokyo, Japan [online], 25-28 may 2020

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Speech-based singing synthesis has various merits while it also has unsolved issues. One of the most noticeable issues is the segment duration and proportion in synthesised singing, which is caused by the difference in the short syllables in speech and the lengthened syllables in singing. This study therefore investigates how syllables are lengthened in Mandarin singing data. A total of 20 songs from the MIREX singing corpus were segmented and analysed. The results showed that (1) the segment proportions in Mandarin syllables are different in speech and in singing; (2) the lengthening is influenced more by the slots in the syllable structure than by the types of segments; (3) in the syllable structure of CGVX in Mandarin, the nuclear V lengthens the most and X follows. The durations of C and G also increase but their proportions in a syllable decrease.
@conference{zhang2020segment-c, presentation = {https://osf.io/ybdup?view_only=c87fe156d1874ffba8a16cc363b225af}, author = {Zhang, Cong and Wang, Xinrong}, title = {Segment Duration and Proportion in Mandarin Singing.}, booktitle = {Speech Prosody 2020}, year = {2020}, category = {oral}, month = {25-28 May}, location = {Tokyo, Japan [online]} }

2019

tone-intonation
Stacking and Unstacking Prosodies: The Production and Perception of Sentence Prosody in a Tonal Language.

Cong Zhang

19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS)
Melbourne, Australia, 5-9 aug 2019

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Teasing apart lexical prosody and sentence prosody has been one of the most difficult tasks in the study of intonational tunes in tonal languages. Are different prosodic manifestations stacked, or are they an integrated whole? With evidence from production and perception data of the intonational yes/no question tune in Tianjin Mandarin at sentence level, this paper proposes that (1) lexical tonal alterations (a.k.a tone sandhi) are lexical-level prosody and do not belong to sentence-level tune; (2) pitch accents induced by information structure are “intra-tune” features, which are such sentence-level prosody features that do not cause sentence type change. Despite being sentence-level prosody features, they are not a part of the tune for intonational yes/no question.
@conference{zhang2019stacking-c, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Stacking and Unstacking Prosodies: The Production and Perception of Sentence Prosody in a Tonal Language.}, booktitle = {19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS)}, year = {2019}, category = {oral}, month = {5-9 Aug}, location = {Melbourne, Australia} }

2018

tone-intonation
Chanted Call Tune in Tianjin Mandarin: Disyllabic Calls.

Cong Zhang

Speech Prosody 2018
Poznań, Poland, 13-16 jun 2018

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This paper examines the chanted call tune in Tianjin Mandarin in order to investigate the possibilities of intonational components, i.e. pitch accents, boundary tones, etc., in a tonal language. Six native Tianjin speakers’ production of disyllabic names and kinship terms were recorded. The speech materials were composed of a set of left-prominent disyllabic names and a set of right-prominent disyllabic names. The results show that there is a L% boundary tone at the end of the intonational phrase, regardless of the lexical tones. Different from the IntQ data, the L% boundary tone is phonetically manifested and overrode the lexical tone contours. A H* pitch accent was found to be associated with the H of each lexical tone. Lengthening was also found in the CC tune. The CC tune in Tianjin Mandarin can be represented as follows: [[H*]sustained]higher register + L%.
@conference{zhang2018chanted-c, author = {Zhang, Cong}, title = {Chanted Call Tune in Tianjin Mandarin: Disyllabic Calls.}, booktitle = {Speech Prosody 2018}, year = {2018}, month = {13-16 Jun}, location = {Poznań, Poland} }

2017

tone-intonation

Perception of Interrogative Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin.

Cong Zhang

Linguistics Association of Great Britain Annual Meeting 2017
University of Kent, UK, 4-7 sep 2017

Bib PDF

@conference{zhang2017perception-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Perception of Interrogative Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin.},
  booktitle = {Linguistics Association of Great Britain Annual Meeting 2017},
  year = {2017},
  category = {oral},
  month = {4-7 Sep},
  location = {University of Kent, UK}
}

tone-intonation

Identifying Interrogative Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin.

Cong Zhang

Processing Prosody Across Languages, Varieties, and Nativeness
University of Tubingen, Germany, 31 aug-1 sep 2017

Bib HTML

@conference{zhang2017identifying-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Identifying Interrogative Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin.},
  booktitle = {Processing Prosody Across Languages, Varieties, and Nativeness},
  year = {2017},
  category = {oral},
  month = {31 Aug-1 Sep},
  location = {University of Tubingen, Germany}
}

award-winning

Tianjin Mandarin Tunes: Production and Perception Data [Best Poster Presentation Award].

Cong Zhang

Phonetics and Phonology in Europe 2017
Cologne, Germany, 12-14 jun 2017

Bib HTML PDF Presentation

@conference{zhang2017tianjin-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Tianjin Mandarin Tunes: Production and Perception Data [Best Poster Presentation Award].},
  booktitle = {Phonetics and Phonology in Europe 2017},
  year = {2017},
  month = {12-14 Jun},
  location = {Cologne, Germany}
}

2016

award-winning

Tones and Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin [Best Student Presentation Award].

Cong Zhang

Tones and Intonation in Europe 2016
University of Kent, UK, 1-3 sep 2016

Bib PDF

@conference{zhang2016tones-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Tones and Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin [Best Student Presentation Award].},
  booktitle = {Tones and Intonation in Europe 2016},
  year = {2016},
  category = {oral},
  month = {1-3 Sep},
  location = {University of Kent, UK}
}

tone-intonation

Tones and Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin: Statement and Intonational Yes-No Questions.

Cong Zhang

Aix Summer School on Prosody 2016
Aix-Marseille Université, France, 6-9 sep 2016

Bib

@conference{zhang2016tones-d,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {Tones and Tunes in Tianjin Mandarin: Statement and Intonational Yes-No Questions.},
  booktitle = {Aix Summer School on Prosody 2016},
  year = {2016},
  category = {oral},
  month = {6-9 Sep},
  location = {Aix-Marseille Universit\'e, France}
}

2015

fluency
L2 Mandarin Development Moving from Instruction to Immersion: Study Abroad Effects.

Clare Wright, and Cong Zhang

Acquisition of Non-Western Languages: The Interface between Language Learning and Language Teaching
University of Greenwich, UK, 10 oct 2015

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Analysing the role of input in driving L2 development in and out of the classroom is essential to understand the interrelation between what learners know and how they use what they know. For western learners of L2 Mandarin, input is typically very limited outside the classroom, and may be often based on traditional grammar-based modes of teaching involving large amounts of explicit formulaic learning. Tracking changes in L2 proficiency among such learners, e.g. moving from limited use of learned chunks to creative linguistic competence (in spoken or written form), can thus be helpful to inform the generalisability of models of L2 development, often derived from studies of communicative or CLT approaches. This study aims to shed light on the newly emerging field of instructed L2 Mandarin development, by examining effects of moving to an input-rich environment during Study Abroad, to see how far this can foster improvements in fluency, grammatical accuracy/ complexity and lexical diversity. We present data from a set of 10 adult English university learners of Mandarin measured before and after ten months studying abroad (SA), using three written and four speaking tasks to track linguistic changes in grammatical development and oral fluency (Freed et al. 2004, Pallotti 2009). Written tasks were measured for grammatical accuracy, total length, and morpheme development (targeting de-possessive, de-relative, shi-copula, and le-perfective). Oral proficiency was measured for total output, grammatical accuracy, pronunciation, lexical development, MLU, hesitation rate, use of pausing, speech rate and phonation time ratio. Information was also gathered on language contact by measuring hours and type of language use during Study Abroad. Writing scores showed little change, other than in greater total length (ns), although there was some evidence of improved grammatical range, with greater use of de-relative (p < .01) by time 2. Oral proficiency scores showed more consistent improved significantly (p < .05), especially overall speech rate (p <.01). However, more fine-grained analysis showed that all measures varied greatly by task, and were very variable across the group. Our study highlights the value of longitudinal SLA-motivated studies of language learners moving between instructed and immersed contexts, but also notes the lack of standardised linguistically-informed measures to elicit reliable evidence of development in instructed L2 Mandarin (Du 2013). We will address how further research could address some of the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical issues involved in analysing systematic linguistic development in instructed L2 Mandarin.
@conference{wright2015l2-c, author = {Wright, Clare and Zhang, Cong}, title = {L2 Mandarin Development Moving from Instruction to Immersion: Study Abroad Effects.}, booktitle = {Acquisition of Non-Western Languages: The Interface between Language Learning and Language Teaching}, year = {2015}, category = {oral}, month = {10 {Oct}}, location = {University of Greenwich, UK} }
fluency
The Effect of Study Abroad Experience on L2 Mandarin Disfluency in Different Types of Tasks.

Clare Wright, and Cong Zhang

7th Workshop on Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech
University of Edinburgh, UK, 8-9 aug 2015

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Disfluency is a common phenomenon in L2 speech, especially in beginners’ speech. Whether studying abroad can help with reducing their disfluency or not remains debated. We examined longitudinal data from 10 adult English instructed learners of Mandarin measured before and after ten months of studying abroad (SA) in this paper. We used two speaking tasks comparing pre-planned vs. unplanned spontaneous speech to compare differences over time and between tasks, using eight linguistic and temporal fluency measures (analysed using CLAN and PRAAT). Overall mean linguistic and temporal fluency scores improved significantly (p < .05), especially speech rate (p <.01), supporting the general claim that SA favours oral development, particularly fluency. Further analysis revealed task differences at both times of measurement, but with greater improvement in the spontaneous task.
@conference{wright2015the-effect-c, author = {Wright, Clare and Zhang, Cong}, title = {The Effect of Study Abroad Experience on L2 Mandarin Disfluency in Different Types of Tasks.}, booktitle = {7th Workshop on Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech}, year = {2015}, category = {oral}, month = {8-9 Aug}, location = {University of Edinburgh, UK} }
fluency
A new perspective in analysing task effects on fluency development in L2 Mandarin.

Clare Wright, and Cong Zhang

the 25th Annual Conference of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA 25)
Aix-en-Provence, France, 26-29 aug 2015

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The investigation of L2 fluency in recent decades has brought increasing rigour and understanding of its complex nature and role within the broad sense of L2 acquisition (Freed et al., 2004; Kormos, 2011). Nevertheless, L2 fluency remains difficult to define and measure consistently, particularly across the two dimensions of cognitive and utterance fluency (Segalowitz, 2010). There is, we argue, a separation of methods between these two dimensions, effectively creating a distinction between linguistic and temporal fluency research. Linguistic fluency studies, e.g. using CLAN, tend to focus on changes across a mix of measures, including morphosyntactic accuracy and lexical diversity, using both monologic and interactional tasks. Temporal fluency studies, e.g. using PRAAT, tend to focus on more fine-grained changes in speech rate and breakdown to reflect automaticity in utterance production, usually measured in monologic speech. The two dimensions clearly overlap in many aspects, but studies which specifically focus on combining both are rare, despite their value in understanding fluency in a more holistic way. This is particularly true for L2 Mandarin, currently under-researched in SLA fluency studies. The study reported here, examining longitudinal changes in L2 Mandarin fluency, thus aims to add to our understanding of fluency at the linguistic/temporal interface by reporting on data, gathered across four monologic and dialogic tasks, involving prepared and unprepared speech, and analysed using both CLAN and PRAAT. Participants are ten adult L1 English learners of Mandarin, assessed before and after a year’s Study Abroad. We found that across tasks, oral measures generally showed clear improvement: in particular total mean output, speech rate, phonological accuracy increased significantly (p <.01). However, other measures such as accuracy and lexical diversity, hesitation and mean length of run differed between task, and were very variable across the group, highlighting individual differences particularly in processing prepared vs. unprepared speech demands. Even within the same task expected correlations between CLAN-based and PRAAT measures were not consistently found. This study highlights the value of collecting detailed longitudinal SLA-motivated datasets of language learners moving between instructed and immersed contexts (Du 2013), and using theoretically-grounded comparisons of linguistic and temporal fluency. However, there remain clear challenges for researching L2 fluency, especially comparing monologic vs dialogic tasks and prepared vs. unprepared speech (Pallotti 2009). We discuss theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications of our data for systematic analysis of L2 oral development, particularly in L2 Mandarin
@conference{wright2015effects-c, author = {Wright, Clare and Zhang, Cong}, title = {A new perspective in analysing task effects on fluency development in L2 Mandarin.}, booktitle = {the 25th Annual Conference of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA 25)}, year = {2015}, category = {oral}, month = {26-29 Aug}, location = {Aix-en-Provence, France} }

2014

fluency
Task Effects on Development of L2 Fluency in Adult Learners of Mandarin after Study Abroad.

Clare Wright, and Cong Zhang

2nd Asian European Linguistics Conference
Newcastle University, UK, 5-6 dec 2014

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Analysing development of L2 fluency as a facet of oral proficiency remains a debated area within SLA (Pallotti 2009, de Jong et al 2012), and radically underresearched in L2 Mandarin. We aim to contribute to the discussion by presenting data from a set of 10 adult English university learners of Mandarin measured before and after ten months studying abroad (SA), to illuminate the complex nature of L2 speech and its development across a range of measures and different tasks. We used four speaking tasks to track changes in general oral proficiency and temporal fluency. General oral proficiency was measured as total output, MLU, grammatical accuracy, lexical development, pronunciation, number and type of filled pauses and hesitation rate (number of repetitions and repairs per word count), using CLAN analyses. Temporal fluency was measured by speech rate, articulation rate, phonation time ratio, number and length of silent pauses. Given the nature of Mandarin, calculations usually based on word or syllable are all here shown as based on single characters. Overall mean oral proficiency scores improved significantly (p < .05), especially overall speech rate (p <.01), supporting the general claim that SA favours oral development, particularly fluency (Collentine and Freed 2004). However, more fine-grained analysis showed that spoken measures varied greatly by task, and were very variable across the group, highlighting the difficulty in clarifying precisely how to assess oral proficiency, or communicative competence. Our study highlights the value of longitudinal SLA-motivated studies of language learners moving between instructed and immersed contexts, but also notes the lack of standardised linguistically-informed measures to provide reliable evidence of oral development in instructed L2 Mandarin (Du 2013). We will address how further research could address some of the theoretical and methodological issues involved in analysing systematic linguistic development in L2 Mandarin.
@conference{wright2014task-c, author = {Wright, Clare and Zhang, Cong}, title = {Task Effects on Development of L2 Fluency in Adult Learners of Mandarin after Study Abroad.}, booktitle = {2nd Asian European Linguistics Conference}, year = {2014}, category = {oral}, month = {5-6 Dec}, location = {Newcastle University, UK} }
fluency
Examining the Effects of a Year Abroad on L2 Chinese.

Clare Wright, Cong Zhang, and Alex Ho-Cheong Leung

3rd International Symposium of Chinese Language and Discourse
Birbeck College, University of London, UK, 11-13 apr 2014

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Variability in second language development over time remains a debated phenomenon, particularly when comparing acquisition of grammatical or lexical knowledge (linguistic competence) with using that knowledge in real-time interaction (communicative competence). The exploratory study reported here tracked changes in linguistic knowledge and use during ten months studying abroad (SA) for ten third-year English students learning Chinese as a second language (L2) at a UK university. We used three writing tasks and four speaking tasks as measures of writing and speaking proficiency, to examine changes in total output, grammatical accuracy, lexical development, pronunciation and fluency, repeated before and after the ten months’ SA in China. Overall mean oral proficiency scores improved significantly (p < .05), especially overall speech rate (p <.01), supporting the general claim that SA favours oral development, particularly fluency (Collentine and Freed 2004). However, more fine-grained analysis showed that spoken measures varied greatly by task, and were very variable across the group, highlighting the difficulty in clarifying precisely how to assess oral proficiency, or communicative competence. Written development showed fewer marked improvement: only one writing test (an untimed short essay) significantly improved in length (p <.05), and in increased complex grammar (use of de-relative clause morphemes, p <.001). A sub-group (n=7) provided quantitative and qualitative data on L2 Chinese use at different times during SA, showing marked individual differences in the SA experience. Our study highlights the value of longitudinal SLA-motivated studies of language learners moving between instructed and immersed contexts, but also notes the importance of capturing individual students’ experiences during SA (Regan et al. 2009). We also note the lack of standardised linguistically-informed measures to provide reliable evidence of language development in instructed L2 Chinese, particularly in spoken language (De Jong et al. 2012; Freed et al. 2004; Pallotti 2009; Zhang 2005). Further research is therefore much needed to identify systematic linguistic development in L2 Chinese, and also to bridge theory and practice in L2 Chinese language teaching, in order to clarify the interconnecting factors, in and out of the classroom, which affect L2 Chinese language development.
@conference{wright2014examining-c, author = {Wright, Clare and Zhang, Cong and Leung, Alex Ho-Cheong}, title = {Examining the Effects of a Year Abroad on L2 Chinese.}, booktitle = {3rd International Symposium of Chinese Language and Discourse}, year = {2014}, category = {oral}, month = {11-13 Apr}, location = {Birbeck College, University of London, UK} }

2012

tone perception

The Effect of Immediate Feedback on the Perception of Mandarin Tones by Non-Mandarin Speakers.

Cong Zhang, and Biao Zeng.

Annual Bloomsbury Round Table on Communication, Cognition and Culture
Birkbeck, University of London, UK, 28-29 jun 2012

Bib

@conference{zhang2012MA-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong and Zeng., Biao},
  title = {The Effect of Immediate Feedback on the Perception of Mandarin Tones by Non-Mandarin Speakers.},
  booktitle = {Annual Bloomsbury Round Table on Communication, Cognition and Culture},
  year = {2012},
  category = {oral},
  month = {28-29 Jun},
  location = {Birkbeck, University of London, UK}
}

tone perception

The Effect of Immediate Feedback on the Perception of Mandarin Tones by Non-Mandarin Speakers: A Pilot Study.

Cong Zhang

15th Warwick International Postgraduate Conference in Applied Linguistics
University of Warwick, UK, 27 jun 2012

Bib

@conference{zhang2012MA-pilot-c,
  author = {Zhang, Cong},
  title = {The Effect of Immediate Feedback on the Perception of Mandarin Tones by Non-Mandarin Speakers: A Pilot Study.},
  booktitle = {15th Warwick International Postgraduate Conference in Applied Linguistics},
  year = {2012},
  month = {27 Jun},
  location = {University of Warwick, UK}
}