The Challenges, Methods and Results of Teaching GB Pronunciation to Slovene EFL Students

The paper presents and discusses the results of a study whose main purpose was to test the oral production of General British (GB) sounds in connected speech by Slovene BA students of English. Previous studies in contrastive English-Slovene pronunciation were mainly concerned with the perception and production of individual sounds. Our study, on the other hand, focused on the production of GB sounds in connected speech. We were interested in the state of affairs of English pronunciation before and after a 60-hour intensive and systematic theoretical and practical instruction of English pronunciation. The results confirmed out initial two hypotheses that the influences of L1 phonological and phonetic system, orthography and General American pronunciation were stronger before the instruction, and that the phonemic transcription has a very positive influence on the acquisition of foreign sounds in EFL students

Word Prosody in Slovene from a Typological Perspective

First publication in "STUF - Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung. Language Typology and Universals Vol. 56 (2003) Issue 3". Akademie Verlag. Permission for reproduction in KU Scholarworks kindly extended by Ms. Sylvia Hoffman (via e-mail 8 June 2009) Akademie Verlag GmbH Markgrafenstr. 12–14 10969 Berlin Tel: +49 30 - 42 20 06-20 Fax: +49 30 - 42 20 06-57 Verlagsleitung: Dr. Sabine Cofalla Geschäftsführung: Dr. Christine Autenrieth HR B 78 489 USt.Id.-Nr. DE 812917618Slovene is, along with Serbo-Croatian, an example of a pitch-accent language, one of only two remaining in the Slavic language family. Most of the literature on Slovene the data on the word-prosody features of this language are taken from the standardized system, a somewhat constructed entity based on the pitch-accent system of selected dialects. The present survey attempts to give a coherent structural description of the word-prosodic phenomena as they are manifested in the extraordinarily variegated Slovene dialects; these in turn are compared to the standardized system as well as, where relevant, to typological similar systems found in Croatian dialects. In addition, the key innovations that shaped the prosodic systems of Slovene dialects are discussed. Slovene emerges as a special set of types that share a tendency to concentrate prosodic distinctions -- pitch and quantity -- in the one stressed syllable of each accented word. Furthermore, these pitch and quantity distinctions in many dialects have become rephonologized as vowel-quantity distinctions. A few aberrant local dialets have gained new pitch distinctions or unstressed quantity distinctions

Perception of Foreign Phonemes: The Case of Slovene Students of English

The study focuses on assessing the state of foreign phoneme acquisition by foreign language (FL) students at the end of their undergraduate studies. To determine whether they prioritise vowels over consonants, a perception experiment was devised that focuses on the phonemes in Standard Slovene and General British reported as most problematic for Slovene learners of English. Thirty-three Slovene students of English were tested, along with a positive and a negative control group (CG). A set of stimuli was tested using the AX discrimination method; the participants listened to 60 phonemic contrasts, played in a pseudo-randomised order. The results foregrounded the most problematic phonemes which act as perceptual magnets. Analysis shows that the students can discriminate foreign phonemes well, and that they consistently perform better in discriminating vocalic contrasts

Labial-dorsal interactions : a phonologically based approach

Głównym celem monografii jest wyjaśnienie bliskich fonologicznych relacji między dwiema artykulacyjnie odległymi klasami: spółgłoskami wargowymi (labialnymi) i grzbietowymi (dorsalnymi). Zaproponowane rozwiązanie sprowadza się do postulowania wspólnego dla tych grup elementu, reprezentującego miejsce artykulacji rzeczonych klas, co pozwala wyjaśnić ich częste interakcje przejawiające się w wielu procesach fonologicznych. Ponadto element ten charakteryzuje grupę samogłosek labialnych i półsamogłoskę [w], tłumacząc w ten sposób ich bliskie pokrewieństwo zarówno ze spółgłoskami labialnymi, jak i dorsalnymi. Zagadnienia poruszane w pracy wpisują ją w szeroki nurt badań nad wewnętrzną strukturą fonologicznych segmentów i wzajemnymi relacjami pomiędzy klasami (fonologia segmentalna), a bardziej szczegółowo, w badania nad właściwościami cech odpowiedzialnych za miejsce artykulacji spółgłosek oraz nad bliskimi relacjami tych ostatnich z samogłoskami. Wartościowym elementem podjętego tematu badań jest niewątpliwie złożoność zagadnienia i bogactwo procesów, w których ujawniają się wzajemne relacje spółgłosek labialnych i dorsalnych. Przykładem może być wokalizacja, epenteza czy dyftongizacja, które to procesy po bliższej analizie mogą przyczynić się do ujawnienia wewnętrznej struktury badanych klas

Phonological Analysis of the Southern Dialect of Istro-Romanian/Vlashki as Compared to Daco-Romanian

Istro-Romanian is a Balkan Romance language with two dialects spoken by less than 120 fluent and active speakers (Vrzić and Singler 2016). The language is spoken on the Istrian peninsula, where it has historically come in contact with the Čakavian and Štokavian dialects of the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian (BCMS) polycentric language as well as Slovenian, Venetian, and Standard Italian. Istro-Romanian evolved from Common Romanian, although whether it evolved directly from Common Romanian or from Daco (standard) Romanian (after DacoRomanian had evolved from Common Romanian) is unclear. The purpose of this paper is the following: compare the Southern dialect of Istro-Romanian to Daco-Romanian. This comparison explores sounds changes that have occurred due to language contact, establishes a more current phonological inventory of a language that is considered highly unstable (Nevaci 2017), and appears to be the first study dedicated solely to one of the dialects of Istro-Romanian. Recordings from Dr. Zvjezdana Vrzić's online project "Preservation of the Vlaški and Žejanski Language" and Dr. Petru Neiescu's recordings from IstroRomanian.net were used for this analysis. Dr. Vrzić's recordings were recorded in 2009-2011 and Dr. Neiescu's recordings were recorded at an unknown date. The sample group consisted of 6 women and 3 men originating from Kostrčani, Letåj, Noselo, or Šušnjevica. While only 9 speakers were sampled for the purpose of this study, as it is estimated that there are only 50 speakers that speak the Southern dialect (Nevaci 2017), this accounts for 18% of the total population. Only words clearly shared by Istro-Romaian and Daco-Romanian were collected. All sampled recordings were downloaded and slowed down to 70% speed, after which phrases were listened to individually. All analysis was exclusively impressionistic, however transcriptions were reviewed with both Dr. Martínez-Gil and Dr. Lechintan-Siefer for accuracy. In total 18 phonological differences between Istro-Romanian and Daco-Romanian shared words were identified, 10 of which were vocalic and 8 of which were consonantal. There are 2 phonological changes per word on average. The majority of the differences have multiple possible explanations for their origin, reflecting the ethnolinguistic diversity of the Istrian peninsula. Further research must be conducted to definitively conclude the origins of these identified changes.No embargoAcademic Major: Romance Studie

Tutorial : Speech assessment for multilingual children who do not speak the same language(s) as the speech-language pathologist

Purpose: The aim of this tutorial is to support speech-language pathologists (SLPs) undertaking assessments of multilingual children with suspected speech sound disorders, particularly children who speak languages that are not shared with their SLP. Method: The tutorial was written by the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech, which comprises 46 researchers (SLPs, linguists, phoneticians, and speech scientists) who have worked in 43 countries and used 27 languages in professional practice. Seventeen panel members met for a 1-day workshop to identify key points for inclusion in the tutorial, 26 panel members contributed to writing this tutorial, and 34 members contributed to revising this tutorial online (some members contributed to more than 1 task). Results: This tutorial draws on international research evidence and professional expertise to provide a comprehensive overview of working with multilingual children with suspected speech sound disorders. This overview addresses referral, case history, assessment, analysis, diagnosis, and goal setting and the SLP’s cultural competence and preparation for working with interpreters and multicultural support workers and dealing with organizational and government barriers to and facilitators of culturally competent practice. Conclusion: The issues raised in this tutorial are applied in a hypothetical case study of an English-speaking SLP’s assessment of a multilingual Cantonese- and English-speaking 4-year-old boy. Resources are listed throughout the tutorial

Intonation in Luo

This thesis investigates the intonation of Luo. It shows how intonation distinguishes sentences. It also investigates how information structure (i.e. focus, dislocations and topics) is intonationally cued in a sentence. The aim is to establish the phonological and phonetic representation of Luo intonation by examining the factors that contribute to the observed F0 contours. Data were collected in Rorya and Tarime districts in Tanzania, where Luo is predominantly spoken. The materials designed comprise of scripted Luo sentences, Swahili sentences to be translated into Luo and picture-based tasks. The analysis is based on the Auto-segmental metrical theory which maps phonological elements to continuous acoustic parameters (Ladd, 1996, 2008). It is found that Luo is a tone-terracing language with four lexical tones: High, Low, Falling and Rising. The observed downtrends are downstep, declination and final lowering. Downstep is the most significant process, contrasting automatic and non-automatic downstep. The latter has no evidence of floating L and thus attributed to right edge boundary effect. Declination is observed in all-High and all-Low tone sequences, as a phonetic effect. Final lowering is also observed as a final effect in both declaratives and questions. Downstep is also a final effect triggered by a boundary L%. Questions are produced with Pitch Range Expansion triggered by a left edge -H intonational tone. There is no prominence on focused constituents but focus constructions are produced with a higher register. Luo dislocations are asymmetrical, with right dislocations phrased with the main clause while left dislocations are phrased separately from the main clause. Complex clauses, except complementizer clauses, are recursive

Exploring Cross-linguistic Effects and Phonetic Interactions in the Context of Bilingualism

This Special Issue includes fifteen original state-of-the-art research articles from leading scholars that examine cross-linguistic influence in bilingual speech. These experimental studies contribute to the growing number of studies on multilingual phonetics and phonology by introducing novel empirical data collection techniques, sophisticated methodologies, and acoustic analyses, while also presenting findings that provide robust theoretical implications to a variety of subfields, such as L2 acquisition, L3 acquisition, laboratory phonology, acoustic phonetics, psycholinguistics, sociophonetics, blingualism, and language contact. These studies in this book further elucidate the nature of phonetic interactions in the context of bilingualism and multilingualism and outline future directions in multilingual phonetics and phonology research

Desegmentalization: towards a common framework for the modeling of tonogenesis and registrogenesis in mainland Southeast Asia with case studies from Austroasiatic

Suprasegmental contrasts of tone and register are commonplace phonological phenomena among the languages of Mainland Southeast Asia and its periphery (MSEA) (Matisoff 1990, 2001). Insofar as we have come to understand the origins and evolution of such contrasts, two theories predominate: tonogenesis (Haudricourt 1954) and registrogenesis (Huffman 1976). In their classical forms, tonogenesis and registrogenesis are well suited for modeling the development of tone and register in the best known, most studied languages of MSEA, but there is much additional complexity that they fail to capture. This is especially true for languages of Austroasiatic stock, which in many cases have developed tone and register in ways that must be considered ‘unorthodox’ with respect to the received models (Ferlus 1979, 2004, 2011; Diffloth 1982a, 1982b; Svantesson 1989; Gehrmann 2015; Sidwell 2015, 2019). The goal of this thesis is to present a possible way forward towards a unified conceptual framework for tone and register evolution in the languages of MSEA: desegmentalization. Expanding on Dockum’s (2019) concept of desegmental phonology, desegmentalization is the process by which one or more segmental properties (onset phonation, vowel height, vowel length or coda phonation) condition changes in the distribution of a language’s suprasegmental contrasts. A general survey of the Austroasiatic language family is presented, in which documented examples of desegmentalization are presented and discussed. Austroasiatic constitutes a useful laboratory for such a survey, because the identification of the segmental origins of suprasegmental contrasts in Austroasiatic languages is relatively straightforward in comparison to the other language families of MSEA. Based on this survey of desegmentalization processes in Austroasiatic, ten discrete desegmentalization models are proposed. The output typologies for the suprasegmental contrasts produced by each model are compared and implications for a general model of tonogenesis and registrogenesis are explored. This thesis offers (1) a digestible introduction for the non-specialist to the historical development of suprasegmental contrast in MSEA, (2) a resynthesis of current tonogenetic theory which integrates classical tonogenesis, classical registrogenesis and various other, lesser-known evolutionary pathways under the larger umbrella of desegmentalization and (3) a comprehensive overview of tone and register origins in the Austroasiatic family