Monthly Archives: March 2016

CHILL! Talk 6 April Zou Ting: Processing of lexical tones by Dutch learners of Mandarin

CHILL!
Chinese Linguistics in Leiden
 
Upcoming talks:
 
6 April 2016, 15:15-16:30, De Vrieshof 1/1
 
ZOU Ting (Leiden)
“Processing of lexical tones by Dutch learners of Mandarin”
 
This study investigates how beginner and advanced Dutch learners of Mandarin process tonal information. Looking at tonal discrimination and segment tone integration, our investigations show a developmental path in tone learning. The beginner learners cannot process tonal contrast adequately at the phonological level, and they process segmental and tonal information separately, like native Dutch listeners without Mandarin experience. The advanced learners show a good phonological discrimination of tonal contrasts. They show a more native-like pattern in distributing their attention between segmental and tonal information, and they process the two dimensions in an integrated manner, similar to native Mandarin listeners. This suggests that the acquisition of new tonal categories in L2 involves a redistribution of attention along acoustic dimensions and the development of segment-tone integration.
 
 
The rest of the Spring Program (all on Wednesdays 15:15-16:30, De Vrieshof 1/1, Leiden)
20 April 2016: Wu Juan (Leiden): “Contact-Induced Grammatical Creations: Through the Lens of Chinese Buddhist Translations”
4 May 2016: Hu Han (Leiden): “A Sociolinguistic Study on Rhoticity in Beijing Mandarin”
18 May 2016: Wang Man (Leiden): “Experimental approach to language production of Mandarin”

22 March: Film screening: The Road from Hainan

22 March: The Road from Hainan

Can one woman put up a successful fight against sexual abuse? How do Chinese local authorities react to unconventional methods of protest? ‘The Road from Hainan’ portrays activist Ye Haiyan as she tries to seek justice for six abused elementary school girls.

 

Time
15:00 – 17:15 hrs

Venue
Lipsius
Room 11
Leiden

 

LeidenAsiaCentre in cooperation with Movies That Matter present a film screening of ‘The Road from Hainan’, followed by a discussion with with Wang Nanfu, the director of the film & Teng Biao, human rights lawyer.

Programme

15:00 Opening and Introduction by Anne Sytske Keijser, Lecturer in modern Chinese, Chinese literature and film, Department of Chinese Studies, Leiden University.

15:15 Viewing of the movie.

16:35 Discussion with Wang Nanfu and Teng Biao, human rights lawyer, moderated by Maghiel van Crevel, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Leiden University.

17:15 End of meeting.

 

CHILL! talk 23 March Lin Jing (UvA): “Non-referentiality in child Mandarin”

CHILL!

Chinese Linguistics in Leiden

 

Upcoming talks:

 

23 March 2016 (15:15-16:30, De Vrieshof 1/1, Leiden)

Lin Jing (UvA): “Non-referentiality in child Mandarin”

 

Abstract: When we say John saw a girl yesterday we know that there must be a girl in the world that John saw yesterday. The DP a girl here is referential. In sentences like John probably saw a girl yesterday, the same DP does not need to have a referential import: this sentence is also true if there is no girl in the world that John saw yesterday. Clearly, generic DPs (at least in English) can be referential, and they may also be non-referential (except for the unicorn, which is non-referential). But there are existentials that are referentially deficient, which means that they must be used in contexts in which they are not forced to refer, such as in the scope of probably. One example here is shénme ‘a/some’ in Mandarin. In this talk, I present results collected from 91 monolingual Mandarin children in an elicited imitation task in which they were examined on their knowledge of the non-referential existential shénme ‘a/some’. I will show how Mandarin children acquire the referential deficiency of shénme without explicitly knowing that shénme wánjù ‘a toy’, for instance, can only be non-referential–unlike its bare counterpart wánjù ‘a toy’.

 

The rest of the Spring Program (all on Wednesdays 15:15-16:30, De Vrieshof 1/1, Leiden)

6 April 2016: Zou Ting (Leiden): “Processing of lexical tones by Dutch learners of Mandarin”

20 April 2016: Wu Juan (Leiden): “Contact-Induced Grammatical Creations: Through the Lens of Chinese Buddhist Translations”

4 May 2016: Hu Han (Leiden): “A Sociolinguistic Study on Rhoticity in Beijing Mandarin”

18 May 2016: Wang Man (Leiden): “Experimental approach to language production of Mandarin”

 

9 March Guqin performance by Ms. Lyu Jiaoyue

Ms. Lyu Jiaoyue, an accomplished  guqin performer from New York, will visit Leiden on Wednesday 9 March 2016. The Confucius Institute of Leiden University will organize a get-together event for her in which she will give an introduction of the instrument guqin and give a performance.

Time: 13:00-15:00 p.m.

Venue: Lipsius Building room 308

 

.Leiden Poster