In the first six months of life, infants systematically explore the laryngeal parameters of phonation and pitch. In existing research, laryngeal vocalizations, defined as "vegetative" or "reflexive", are characterized by the presence of "strained" and "rough" phonation with "high degrees of vocal tension" and dynamic pitch variations. Previous studies have focused exclusively on the development of linguistic precursors, including only "speech-like" sounds with "normal" or modal phonation. These studies have excluded laryngeal vocalizations (i.e. grunts, squeals and growls) from their experimental analyses and therefore have not provided an accurate description of early phonetic development. This thesis attempts to fill the gap in the phonetic and articulatory description of the infant vocal capacity by investigating the exploration and development of the laryngeal mechanisms involved in the production of laryngeal phonation and laryngeal pitch. In order to account for the productive capability of infants, it is necessary to consider the vital role of the primary articulator in the adult and infant larynx, the aryepiglottic laryngeal sphincter. The mechanism of the laryngeal sphincter is actively engaged in early infancy to protect the tracheal airway from inundation. In this study, two quantitative analyses of one English-speaking infant's vocalizations in the first six months of life were conducted. In analysis one, auditorily based analysis of 824 vocalizations was performed using the phonetic taxonomy of laryngeal modalities developed by Esling and colleagues (Esling, Benner & Bettany, 2004a; Esling, 2002). The incidence of five phonatory settings (i.e. harsh voice, creaky voice, whisper, modal voice and falsetto) and three pitch levels (low, mid and high) was reported. In analysis two, the laryngeal parameters involved in "range exploration", defined in this study as the instance of within-vocalization phonatory altemations, were quantified by means of acoustic analysis. 120 randomly selected vocalizations (20 from each of the six months) were used in this analysis component. The durations of the vocalizations and of individual phonatory settings within each vocalization were calculated using spectrographic analysis and compared statistically. The present study was able to accurately identify the phonetic range and productive repertoire of infant vocalizations produced in the first six months of life. Four main findings were reported in this study: (1) the default setting in early infancy is laryngeally constricted and low-pitched, (2) the infant's phonetic repertoire of phonation and pitch expands at four months (3) the incidence of within-vocalization phonatory altemations increases at four months and, (4) the productive integration of phonation and pitch is acquired by the sixth month of life.

本論文通過事件語義學的理論框架，以跨語言的視角來研究漢語普通話中空間表達方式的句法及語義問題。通過對空間概念在語言中的編碼的深入研究，我們將能夠對語言獨特性以及潛藏在表層差異下的語言共性有更多瞭解。本研究中討論的可能的語言共性包括：動詞的事件類型轉換（Smith 1997；Rothstein 2004），空間介詞短語是事件修飾語（Parsons 1990），以及目的物-參照物非對稱性（Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976；Talmy 1983）。這些語言共性使我們能夠解釋和描述漢語普通話中"在"引領的空間介詞短語的分佈和解讀--它們是由與"在"連用的動詞的事件結構決定的（Fong 1997； Liu 2009）。當"在"短語出現在放置類動詞（一種完成體動詞）前時，它們可能會有歧義，因為它們可以修飾兩個子事件中的任何一個。當"在"短語出現在姿態類動詞後時，它們表達一個靜態位置或是一個動作的結果位置，因為動詞經歷了從狀態體（它的預設事件類型）到成就體（它的衍生事件類型）的事件類型轉換。在普通話口語中，只有事件結構中含有動態或結果狀態的動詞可以後接"在"短語。能進入雙論元處所主語句的動詞的事件結構中也必須含有動態或結果狀態。 / 漢語普通話還有它的獨特性和複雜性：參照物的軸向信息在普通話中是由方位詞表達的，方位詞的詞類是名詞還是後置詞仍在討論之中；方位詞短語的構成規則很複雜，根據方位詞所帶的名詞短語的不同有不同的變體。 / 本研究由語料庫研究和實驗組成：語料庫涵蓋了1歲9個月到6歲的普通話兒童的語料，實驗測試了2到6歲5個兒童組和一個成人對比組。我們發現語言輸入中不一致的線索給語言習得帶來困難：有些兒童到6 歲還會省略必須要的方位詞，有的會接受專有處所名詞後加不該加的方位詞"裡"；4 歲兒童對不合法的"動詞-處所"語序接受度明顯高過成人，因為普通話中處所的概念可以在不同的句法位置實現。兒童對規則的過度泛化顯示了基於規則的學習機制。認知發展對方位詞的習得順序以及兒童對直指性代詞、視者中心參照系統和順向參照策略的依賴均有影響。 / 本研究也解決了一些語言學理論問題。兒童早在 3 歲就掌握了"在"引領的介詞短語的歧義，證明了"事件"這一範疇的存在，以及事件類型轉換、（子）事件修飾的心理真實性。放置類動詞前的"在"短語更傾向于被兒童及成人解讀為終點，說明該類動詞的事件結構中結果狀態更為顯著。姿態類動詞後的"在"短語更傾向于被兒童及成人解讀為處所，顯示該類動詞的基本事件類型是狀態。在產出方位詞短語時，兒童比成人更傾向使用"的"。因為"的"後只能接名詞，兒童語料支持了Li（1990）方位詞是名詞的觀點。 / This dissertation examines the syntax and semantics of Mandarin spatial expressions from a comparative perspective grounded in the theoretical framework of event semantics. A thorough understanding of the linguistic encoding of space enables us to gain insight into language specificity, and language universals underlying surface variation. The putative language universals discussed in this study include aspect shift of the verb (Smith 1997; Rothstein 2004), spatial PPs as event modifiers (Parsons 1990), and Figure-Ground asymmetry (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976; Talmy 1983). These universals allow us to account for, for instance, the distribution and interpretation of Mandarin spatial PPs headed by zai, which are determined by the event structure of the co-occurring verbs (Fong 1997; Liu 2009). When zai-PPs occur before a placement verb, an Accomplishment, they are potentially ambiguous due to subevent modification of the PPs. When zai-PPs occur after a posture verb, they express a static location, or a result location, since the verb undergoes aspect shift from State, its default event type, to Achievement, the derived one. In spoken Mandarin, only verbs that have a dynamic/result state component in their event structures can take postverbal zai-PPs. Verbs that can enter two-argument locative subject constructions should also have a dynamic/result state in their event structures. / Mandarin has its language-specific properties and complexities: information about the axial parts of the reference entity is encoded by localizers in Mandarin, whose status as nouns or postpositions is still debated; Mandarin LP-formation is complex, with some variants depending on the nature of the DP subcategorized by the localizer. / The present study includes a corpus study of Mandarin-speaking children aged between 1;9 and 6;0, and an experimental study on five groups of children (2-, 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-year olds) with an adult control group. Inconsistent cues in the input slow down acquisition: children up to 6;0 omitted localizers that are obligatory, and allowed the localizer li ‘inside’ to follow proper names; 4-year-olds significantly differed from adults in tolerating non-target V-Location word order, as the mapping of Location to syntactic position is not consistent. Children’s overgeneralization indicates a rule-based learning mechanism. Cognitive development manifests its influence on the acquisition orders of localizers and children’s reliance on deictic pronouns, the viewer-centered perspective and the aligned reference strategy. / The empirical findings help to resolve some linguistic issues. Children as young as 3;0 are sensitive to the ambiguity of zai-PPs with placement verbs and posture verbs, providing ontogenetic evidence for the category of event, and for the psychological reality of aspect shift and (sub)event modification. The directional reading of preverbal zai-PPs with placement verbs is preferred over the locational one by children and adults, suggesting the salience of the result state in the event structure of placement verbs. The locational reading is preferred to the directional one by children and adults, as the default event type of posture verbs is State. In forming LPs, children used de, which takes nouns after it, more than adults, supporting Li’s (1990) analysis of localizers as nouns. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Deng, Xiangjun. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 314-324). / Abstracts also in Chinese; appendixes includes Chinese.

Fung, Hiu Man Cat. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-264). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese.

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Traditional studies in syntactic complexity consider increased clausal complexity to be characteristic of development, proficiency and growth in written language production. However, this stereotypical view ignores two important facts. First, complexity differs by register (i.e. daily speech versus formal writing). Second, as the proficiency of writers increases, their complexity in formal writing changes from clausal complexity to phrasal complexity (i.e. lower-proficiency writers have more subordinate clauses whereas higher-proficiency writers tend to have more noun phrases). Therefore, in this study, I argue for the need to consider not just clausal complexity but also phrasal complexity measures when assessing development and performance in second language (L2) writing production. In addition, this study addresses two important gaps that remain understudied in the literature of syntactic complexity. First, there are few studies that analyze changes in syntactic complexity of first-language (L1) Spanish English Language Learners (ELL)'s writing. A few studies have analyzed writers' L1 background as an influential factor in complexity, but an important language such as Spanish has been ignored. Additionally, most studies focus on general academic writing (i.e. argumentative essays), but there are no studies that investigate syntactic complexity in other registers and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) areas. For instance, there are no studies in syntactic complexity that focus on civil engineering, which is an area where writing plays a vital role. Hence, this study intends to fill these gaps by looking at the syntactic complexity of civil engineering student writing, including Spanish L1 writers. The present study investigated syntactic complexity in the writing of English-as- their-first-language (EL1) and English-language-learner (ELL) civil engineering student writing. Taking a contrastive corpus-based approach, I used the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) (Lu, 2010) to analyze measures of clausal and phrasal complexity. In particular, I used two measures of clausal complexity (clauses per sentence and dependent clauses per clause) and three measures of phrasal complexity (mean length of clause, coordinate phrases per clause, and complex nominals per clause). The analysis was focused on a total of 74 samples of student writing: 30 ELL low-level texts, 14 ELL high-level texts, and 30 EL1 texts. The quantitative analysis consisted of non-parametric statistical tests applied between groups (i.e. ELL-low vs ELL-high, ELL-low vs EL1, and ELL-high vs EL1). The statistical analysis indicated that the writing of both ELL student groups was significantly more clausally complex than the writing of EL1 students on both clausal complexity measures. No differences were found in phrasal complexity, and no developmental trends were found in relation to levels of proficiency among writers. All groups exhibited high levels of internal diversity and lack of within-group consistency. The pedagogical implications of this study include familiarizing ELL students with the characteristics of professional engineering writing as a way to break the stereotype that more clausally complex sentences entail more advanced and more proficient writing. ESP instructors should try to identify characteristics of the syntactic complexity particular to their field so that they can provide appropriate feedback to their students. Moreover, ESP programs with Spanish-speaking students should pay attention to clausal complexity as potential linguistic transfer from students' L1 into the writing production in the L2.

Dans les premières années de la radiothérapie, les mécanismes d’action et les effets secondaires des radiations ionisantes n’étaient que faiblement compris. La génétique moléculaire a clairement montré les dommages causés par ses radiations sur l’ADN des cellules. Cependant, le rayonnement ne distinguant pas les cellules saines des cellules tumorales, les plus grandes avancées modernes en radiothérapie sont concentrées sur l'amélioration de la précision de la dose délivrée. Avec un intérêt relativement bas pour la compréhension fondamentale des mécanismes de base des dégâts biologiques induits par irradiation.Dans le 1er chapitre de cette thèse, l’état de l’art conduit à considérer le Silicon Nano Tweezers (SNT) comme un excellent candidat pour l’exploration des champs méconnus de la radiothérapie. Le 2nd chapitre présente le SNT et sa capacité à caractériser en temps réel les propriétés biomécaniques de l’ADN. Le 3ème chapitre montre le dispositif entourant le SNT et évalue sa capacité à mesurer les caractéristiques d’un faisceau d’ADN en milieu liquide subissant le rude champ électromagnétique généré par la machine de radiothérapie : le Cyberknife. Le 4ème chapitre explique le protocole spécialement développé pour la caractérisation par le SNT de l’ADN en milieu liquide. Le 5ème chapitre présente les résultats clés, obtenus dans diverses conditions, de caractérisations mécaniques en temps réel de faisceau d’ADN irradiés par le Cyberknife. La dernière partie conclue finalement sur les possibilités et les perspectives offertes par la technologie des Microsystèmes électromécaniques dans l’avancée de la recherche en radiothérapie et en plus largement en médecine. / In the early days of radiotherapy, very little was known about the mechanism of action of ionizing radiation and its side effects. The understanding of molecular genetics has made it clear that radiation damages mainly the DNA of cells. However, since radiation does not distinguish between healthy and tumor cells, the largest improvement of the radiotherapy technology in modern days has concentrated on improving the precision of dose-deliver, with a comparatively lower interest in the fundamental understanding of the basic mechanisms of biological radiation damage.In the first chapter of this thesis, the state of the art conducts to consider the Silicon Nano Tweezers (SNT) as an excellent candidate to explore unknown field of the radiotherapy treatment. The second chapter introduces the SNT and explains its ability to conduct real-time biomechanical characterization of a DNA bundle. The third chapter shows the surrounding SNT setup, and evaluates its capability to measure the biomechanical characteristic of a DNA bundle in liquid under the harsh electromagnetic environment generated by a radiotherapy machine: the Cyberknife. The fourth chapter explains the protocol developed for the DNA characterization in liquid by the SNT. The fifth chapter presents some key results of real-time mechanical characterization of DNA bundles under the Cyberknife irradiation in several conditions, followed by a discussion based on the theoretical model of a randomly damaged DNA bundle. The last part finally concludes on the capability and perspective offered by Micro-electromechanical technologies to push the research in radiotherapy and in medicine.

Reading in a second language (L2) is a complex process that poses formidable obstacles for readers, especially those in the initial stages of learning. The challenge is particularly daunting for lower-level Chinese L2 readers with an alphabetic first language (L1) background. Chinese is a logographic, deep orthography with unique linguistic features that necessitate specific reading processes and skills. The development of Chinese L2 reading competence is heavily dependent upon instruction. Effective instruction requires accurate diagnoses of the learners’ reading problems and appropriate selection of instructional materials. Compared with standardized proficiency tests that provide little diagnostic information, and formal diagnostic assessments that are inconvenient to use in daily instruction for diagnostic purposes, informal diagnostic assessment tools enable language teachers to better accommodate the instructional needs of learners to identify reading weaknesses and select suitable materials. However, thus far, instruction-informative, diagnostically rich, and flexible informal diagnostic reading assessment for Chinese L2 reading is lacking. This study aims to fill a gap in the Chinese L2 reading assessment field by exploring the applicability of three tasks as informal reading diagnostic assessment tools to measure comprehension performance, detect reading problems, and determine instructional material difficulty levels for lower-level Chinese L2 readers. These three assessment instruments are: oral word reading, word segmentation, and oral passage reading. This study is a necessary step towards constructing diagnostic Chinese reading assessment instruments that can be used by classroom teachers. It also contributes to the Chinese L2 reading field theoretically because it examines whether an L1 English reading theory can be applied to explain L2 Chinese reading. The participants in this study were 70 lower-level English-speaking learners of Chinese from several universities in the United States and China. The results showed that all three of the informal diagnostic instruments effectively predict reading comprehension, with oral passage reading emerging as the strongest indicator. One shared construct, oral reading fluency, underlies the three diagnostic instruments. Oral reading fluency strongly predicts comprehension, suggesting that there is commonality in reading across languages, and theories designed for L1 alphabetic language reading can be well applied to Chinese L2 reading. Chinese orthographic characteristics also exert influence on reading, as manifested in the stronger role of fluency in predicting comprehension and the word segmenting processes in reading. The informal diagnostic instruments can also be used to evaluate instructional material difficulty. Two of the three textbook-equivalent texts examined in this study fit the learners’ reading level, while most learners felt one of the texts was too difficult to read. L2 readers have diverse profiles and they develop their componential skills in different ways, whereas the crucial role of word-level processing in reading remains stable across reader patterns. Generally speaking, the three diagnostic instruments were moderately difficult for the participants in this study, and the two oral reading tasks were more challenging than the word segmentation. The quantity and quality of learners’ errors when completing these three diagnostic instruments reveal rich information about their reading processes and problems. The findings offered strong support for the three instruments as effective tools for diagnostic purposes in Chinese lower-level L2 reading instruction and indicated the importance of developing reading fluency and training word-level processing skills.

The Chinese perfective aspect marker le is one of the most challenging yet very important grammatical features for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). Based on the observation that there was a lack of width in the study of this feature in the earlier research, the current study presents a new perspective at the discourse level to achieve a more in-depth understanding of the acquisition of le. In response to the obvious need to obtain data on the acquisition of this linguistic feature with a global view, the current thesis study starts with the discourse functions of le, and eventually providing an encompassing guideline in learning le at the prosodic, syntactic, semantic and discourse level in linguistics. Three instruments (UI Placement Test-Grammar Section, Knowledge Test, and Production Test) were administered to 95 American college CFL learners of four different proficiency levels and to 30 native speakers of Chinese as controls. Test scores from the Knowledge Test go through statistic analysis, and the language data collected from the Production Test are analyzed qualitatively so as to generalize patterns in association with the usage of le. Analysis of data indicates that there is a linear relationship between the increase in the knowledge of le in discourse and the advancement of learners' instructional level. In the production data, learners at the beginning and intermediate levels use Sed-le with the highest frequency, in comparison with their use of Ant-le and Pk-le, whereas learners at the advanced level use Pk-le with the highest frequency. Learners at the beginning and intermediate levels also tend to use le in the first SENTENCE more often than at the advanced level. There is also a missing pattern of the so-called "double-le" in both learner and native speakers' production data. In addition, there are patterns that native speakers use, but are not observed in learners' production data. Based on these research results, it is hypothesized the process of acquiring this challenging grammatical feature le be governed by principled interactions at the prosodic, syntactic, semantic, and discourse levels.

This study investigates the effects of instruction delivered via a learner-centered, self-access website on the learning of expressions of gratitude by L2 Chinese learners across proficiency levels. Three research questions are addressed: (1) whether the web-based instruction facilitates students' learning of Chinese expressions of gratitude, (2) whether the effects of instruction vary across proficiency levels, and (3) how L2 learners regard the use of the website as a learning tool. Based on the noticing hypothesis and the pragmatic consciousness-raising approach, a pragmatics website was developed that provided explicit instruction on how to appropriately express gratitude in Chinese and offered awareness-raising exercises and activities for practice. It was structured in eight instructional units and two review sessions. To address the three research questions, this study adopted a pretest-posttest design to include two groups of learners who differed in their proficiency in the Chinese language. The two groups of learners received pragmatics instruction delivered via the self-access website over five weeks. Two weeks prior to the instruction, all learners were asked to complete (1) the language contact profile (LCP) for eliciting their demographic information and their contact with Chinese outside the classroom, (2) a local standardized Chinese proficiency test (CPT) for assessing their proficiency in Chinese, (3) discourse completion tasks/tests (DCT) for soliciting their production of Chinese expressions of gratitude, (4) metapragmatic assessment tasks (MAT) for eliciting their metapragmatic assessment of thanking responses provided, and (5) retrospective interviews for soliciting learners' explanations of their assessments in the MAT. On a weekly basis during the treatment period, learners wrote reflective e-journals in response to prompt questions provided by the researcher, which helped track learners' self-access study progress and their on-going perceptions of the website. One week after the online instruction, all learners were also asked to complete the same types of questionnaires (i.e., the DCT and the MAT) and retrospective interviews for assessing their pragmatic development. Results showed that after receiving the web-based instruction, all learners produced more appropriate expressions of gratitude and used more varied thanking strategies in their responses, regardless of their proficiency. Learners' assessments of Chinese expressions of gratitude became more target-like and their metapragmatic awareness was also promoted. However, higher-level learners seemed to have benefited more from the instruction in their production of Chinese expressions of gratitude than lower-level participants, and the higher-level group demonstrated an overall higher level of pragmatic awareness than the lower-level group after the online instruction. But no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of learners' metapragmatic assessments. In addition, participants responded positively to the website and put forward constructive suggestions to improve it. Finally, this study interpreted the findings based on cognitive processing theories, proposed both theoretical and pedagogical implications, and discussed the limitations of this study and directions for future research.