Featural generalization in second language identification Performance: Comparing learners with different L1s
Publication date: January 2018 Source:Journal of Phonetics, Volume 66 Author(s): Kenneth de Jong, Yen-chen Hao The current study examined identification responses by Taiwan Mandarin L1 speakers learning English. Stimuli were monosyllabic and disyllabic native English productions of voiced and voiceless, labial and coronal, plosives and non-sibilant fricatives. Analyses correlated individual identification performance for laryngeal (hereafter, “voicing”) contrasts and manner contrasts, obtained from different halves of the overall corpus. Manner accuracy correlations were strong, particularly between voiced and voic...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - October 25, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Second language acquisition of intonation: Peak alignment in American English
The objective of the present study was to investigate (1) whether, and to what degree, late bilinguals of different L1 backgrounds are comparable to native speakers in the phonetic implementation of tonal targets in their L2, (2) whether they exhibit general patterns of acquisition irrespective of the typological closeness of their L1 to their L2, and (3) whether learners’ choice of accent contours and the alignment of the high tone (H∗) proceeds in parallel with proficiency in the L2. More specifically, we examined the acquisition of the nuclear contour composition and the H∗ alignment of the American English (L)H...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - October 12, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Erratum to “L2 immersion causes non-native-like L1 pronunciation in German attriters” [J. Phon. 58 (2016) 71–86]
Publication date: Available online 6 September 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics Author(s): Christopher Bergmann, Amber Nota, Simone A. Sprenger, Monika S. Schmid (Source: Journal of Phonetics)
Source: Journal of Phonetics - September 7, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Prosodic mitigation characterizes Catalan formal speech: The Frequency Code reassessed
Publication date: November 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics, Volume 65 Author(s): Iris Hübscher, Joan Borràs-Comes, Pilar Prieto Research in the past few decades has claimed that high or rising fundamental frequency (F0) signals a set of meanings related to the expression of politeness (e.g., deference, submission or lack of confidence (Gussenhoven, 2004; Ohala, 1984)). In this regard, the Frequency Code has been proposed to explain the universal tendency for high pitch to be interpreted as related to politeness and other sociopragmatic meanings (Gussenhoven, 2004; Gussenhoven, Chen, & Rietveld, 2002; Ohala,...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - August 17, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The role of time in phonetic spaces: Temporal resolution in Cantonese tone perception
Publication date: November 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics, Volume 65 Author(s): Kristine M. Yu The role of temporal resolution in speech perception (e.g. whether tones are parameterized with fundamental frequency sampled every 10ms, or just twice in the syllable) is sometimes overlooked, and the temporal resolution relevant for tonal perception is still an open question. The choice of temporal resolution matters because how we understand the recognition, dispersion, and learning of phonetic categories is entirely predicated on what parameters we use to define the phonetic space that they lie in. Here, we present a ton...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - August 9, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Acoustic correlates of focus in Marathi: Production and perception
Publication date: November 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics, Volume 65 Author(s): Preeti Rao, Niramay Sanghvi, Hansjörg Mixdorff, Kamini Sabu Focus or prominence is an important linguistic function of prosody. The acoustic realisation of prominence in an utterance, in most languages, involves one or more acoustic dimensions while affecting one or more words in the utterance. It is of interest to identify the acoustic correlates as well as their possible interaction in the production and perception of focus. In this article, we consider the acoustics of focus in Marathi. Previous studies on Hindi, the more researched...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - August 4, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Car-talk: Location-specific speech production and perception
Publication date: November 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics, Volume 65 Author(s): Jennifer Hay, Ryan Podlubny, Katie Drager, Megan McAuliffe Some locations are probabilistically associated with certain types of speech. Most speech that is encountered in a car, for example, will have Lombard-like characteristics as a result of having been produced in the context of car noise. We examine the hypothesis that the association between cars and Lombard speech will trigger Lombard-like speaking and listening behaviour when a person is physically present in a car, even in the absence of noise. Production and perception tasks ...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - July 30, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
On the phrase-level function of f0 in Estonian
This study explored how focus and word positioning affect f0 via a production experiment involving elicitation of laboratory speech. The results showed that independently of word order, the focal word was aligned with prominence-lending f0 movement, thus demonstrating that in Estonian narrow focus is related to f0, as is typical in intonation languages. (Source: Journal of Phonetics)
Source: Journal of Phonetics - July 13, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
L1 –L2 interactions of vowel systems in young bilingual Mandarin-English children
This study examined the influence of L1 (Mandarin)–L2 (English) interactions on the organization of vowel systems and fine-grained spectral features of vowel productions in young bilingual Mandarin-English children. The participants included 39 children (15 bilinguals, 15 Mandarin monolinguals, and 9 English monolinguals) at 5–6years of age. The bilingual children were divided into Bi-low (at the early stage of English learning with low proficiency in English) and Bi-high (highly proficient in English) groups. Each participant was recorded producing one set of Mandarin words containing /a, i, u, y, ɤ/ and/or one set o...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - July 7, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Mechanisms of regulation in speech: Linguistic structure and physical control system
Publication date: Available online 16 June 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics Author(s): Doris Mücke, Anne Hermes, Taehong Cho Speech variation is a naturally-induced phenomenon in human speech communication which can be attributed to the inevitably multifaceted nature of interactions between various higher-order linguistic and lower-order physiological factors. Speech is dynamic, and it is assumed that there are regulation mechanisms behind these complex interactions of structural, contextual and phonetic cues leading to an overwhelming variety of gradient phenomena in the speakers’ linguistic behaviour. Recent year...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - July 6, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Phonetic drift in Spanish-English bilinguals: Experiment and a self-organizing model
Publication date: November 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics, Volume 65 Author(s): Stephen J. Tobin, Hosung Nam, Carol A. Fowler Studies of speech accommodation provide evidence for change in use of language structures beyond the critical/sensitive period. For example, Sancier and Fowler (1997) found changes in the voice-onset-times (VOTs) of both languages of a Portuguese-English bilingual as a function of her language context. Though accommodation has been studied widely within a monolingual context, it has received less attention in and between the languages of bilinguals. We tested whether these findings of phoneti...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - July 4, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Canadian Raising in Chicagoland: The production and perception of a marginal contrast
This study contributes to our understanding of marginal contrasts in production and perception. The understanding of these contrasts has both theoretical and practical relevance. (Source: Journal of Phonetics)
Source: Journal of Phonetics - June 23, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The relation between the continuous and the discrete: A note on the first principles of speech dynamics
Publication date: Available online 12 June 2017 Source:Journal of Phonetics Author(s): Khalil Iskarous The goal of this paper is to show how dynamical theories of phonetics and phonology bridge the dualistic gap between discrete phonological descriptions and continuous phonetic descriptions. By delving into the first principles of dynamics, it is shown that dynamical theories do not assume separate sets of principles to describe discrete and continuous aspects of a system. Rather, the discrete description is shown to predict the continuous one, using the concept of a differential equation, which is thoroughly explained....
Source: Journal of Phonetics - June 13, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Articulatory mechanisms underlying onset-vowel organization
We examined singleton and cluster onsets with different vowel-adjacent consonants in terms of temporal lag measurements as done in previous studies as well as in terms of tongue body position measurements. Both analyses revealed parallel results and substantiate the hypothesized interaction of coarticulation resistance of the vowel-adjacent consonant and onset-vowel organization. We discuss how this interaction between articulator dominance and temporal overlap can be modeled within the gestural approach to syllable organization by giving a novel interpretation to the coupling strength parameter in terms of coarticulation ...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - June 10, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The variability of syllable patterns in Tashlhiyt Berber and Polish
In this study we investigate the timing of word-initial clusters and its relation to distinct phonological syllable parses in Tashlhiyt Berber and Polish. To this end, we use experimental, articulographic data (steps 1 and 2) combined with computer-based simulation (step 3). In step 1, we test how temporal properties of consonantal clusters such as overlap can vary within a single language. In step 2, we relate articulatory coordination patterns to distinct phonological syllable parses, involving simple and complex onsets, in order to calculate stability indices for each language. In step 3, we test the robustness of these...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - June 3, 2017 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
