Variable Adaptation of English loanwords in German – a perceptual study

A big question in the field of loan phonology, is that of the extent to which the perception of the speakers of the borrowing language affects the adaptation itself. Past researchers have had varying thoughts about this, ranging from the idea that perception is of utmost importance (Peperkamp, 2003), to the thought that is of very little significance (Uffmann, 2006). One phenomenon in this field that offers us useful insight into such issues is that of variable adaptation, namely when one word or sound is adapted in multiple ways into one language, and this is what I am interested in. I investigate variable adaptation of the English FACE diphthong into German, which does not contain this “phoneme”. The diphthong is adapted sometimes to /ɛ:/ and sometimes to /e:/, and the source of the variability is not lexical, as German dictionaries list both pronunciations as possible options for German speakers. Jax (2011) suggested that the variation may be due to the internal timing of the diphthong’s formant trajectories, and the way this is perceived by German listeners. Another important aspect within this field that I address is that of the methodology used in studying loan phonology. Generally, in past studies, the methods used have differed a lot based on whether researchers have been approaching the issue from a phonological of a phonetic viewpoint. For instance, the level of bilingualism that the subjects who are tested possess varies greatly. By taking methods generally used to measure the perception of an L2, such as those used by Boersma & Escudero (2002, 2004) and Iverson & Evans (2007), I am able to control for more variables, enabling me to argue that loan word adaptation can neither be treated as an entirely phonetic nor an entirely phonological process

Mutual intelligibility of Dutch-German cognates by children:The devil is in the detail

Several studies (e.g., Ház 2005) have found German to be easier to understand for Dutch listeners than Dutch for German listeners. This asymmetry has been attributed to the fact that German is an obligatory subject in Dutch secondary school and that many Dutch people watch German television. In contrast, it is much less common for German children to learn Dutch at school and for German people to watch Dutch television. It cannot be excluded, however, that in addition to the extralinguistic factor of language contact, linguistic factors also play a role in the asymmetric intelligibility between German and Dutch. The present study aimed at gaining insight into the phonetic-phonological factors playing a role in Dutch-German intelligibility at the word level for speakers of the respective languages in a first confrontation (i.e., assuming no prior language contact). We presented highly frequent Dutch and German cognate nouns, recorded by a perfect bilingual speaker, to Dutch and German children between 9 and 12 years in a word translation task. The German and Dutch children were comparable in that they did not know the other language or a related dialect and expressed equally positive attitudes towards the other language, its speakers and the country. It was thus ensured that language contact and language attitude could not play a role in the present study. Our results revealed that the Dutch subjects were significantly better at understanding the German cognates (50.2% correct translations) than the German subjects were at understanding the Dutch cognates (41.9%). Since the relevant extra-linguistic factors had been excluded, the asymmetry must have a linguistic basis. A thorough analysis of the 16 cognate pairs with an asymmetry larger than 20% showed that (combinations of) neighbors (lexical competitors), phonetic detail and asymmetric perceptions of corresponding sounds play a major role in the explanation of the asymmetry

A Sound Approach to Language Matters: In Honor of Ocke-Schwen Bohn

The contributions in this Festschrift were written by Ocke’s current and former PhD-students, colleagues and research collaborators. The Festschrift is divided into six sections, moving from the smallest building blocks of language, through gradually expanding objects of linguistic inquiry to the highest levels of description - all of which have formed a part of Ocke’s career, in connection with his teaching and/or his academic productions: “Segments”, “Perception of Accent”, “Between Sounds and Graphemes”, “Prosody”, “Morphology and Syntax” and “Second Language Acquisition”. Each one of these illustrates a sound approach to language matters

Variabilita trvání segmentů ve čtených textech českých a britských mluvčích angličtiny

Tato práce se zabývá variabilitou trvání segmentů ve čtených textech českých a britských mluvčích angličtiny. Variabilita v trvání segmentů byla v řeči tří českých a tří britských mluvčích zkoumána z hlediska příslušnosti k jednotlivým vokalickým a konsonan-tickým třídám segmentů a dále byl zkoumán i vliv přízvuku a hranice promluvového úseku. V řeči českých mluvčích byly pozorovány následující tendence. Jednak se českým mluvčím nedařilo zcela postihnout rozdíly v trvání mezi jednotlivými třídami samohlásek a jejich dlouhé samohlásky byly tedy o něco kratší než u britských mluvčích. Dále samohláskám českých mluvčích částečně chyběl potřebný kontrast daný rozdílem v trvání v přízvučných a nepřízvučných pozicích. A z hlediska vlivu hranice, jak samohlásky tak i souhlásky českých mluvčích nedosahovaly takového stupně prodloužení v poslední slabice promluvového úseku, ke kterému docházelo u mluvčích britských. Teoretická část práce se zabývá dvěma hlavními tématy. Prvním je cizinecký přízvuk s ohledem na stupeň přízvuku, jeho objektivní i subjektivní srozumitelnost a také na jeho důsledky pro komunikaci a na faktory, které mohou ovlivnit jeho míru. Druhá část pojednává o temporální doméně řeči vzhledem k trvání segmentů v češtině a angličtině a oblasti rytmu. Zmiňuje se též o významnosti trvání v percepci a...The study focuses on durational variation of segments in read speech of Czech and British speakers of English. The variation in segmental duration was examined in the speech of three Czech and three British speakers with respect to individual vowel and consonant categories. Furthermore, stress and intonation phrase boundary were explored as possible factors influencing segmental duration. The theoretical part of the study focuses on two main topics. The first is foreign accent with regard to accentedness, intelligibility and comprehensibility as well as in connection to its implications and factors which might influence its degree. The second part contains theoretical background about the time domain of speech concerning segmental duration in Czech and English, the area of rhythm, the importance of durational cues in perception and a short survey of factors reported to affect segmental duration. Czech accent in English and the importance of duration in foreign language are also covered. In the empirical part of the study, Czech speakers were found to miss the appropriate proportions between individual vowel categories and realize their long vowels as slightly too short. They lacked an adequate degree of durational contrast in stressed and unstressed vowels when compared to the British speakers. With regard...Institute of PhoneticsFonetický ústavFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

A phonetic variationist study on Chilean speakers of English as a foreign language

Variationist research in the Labovian paradigm has traditionally looked at the structured heterogeneity found in first language (L1) speech. More recently this quantitative methodology has been applied to speakers acquiring a second language (L2), usually in immigrant settings. This research has shown that alongside well documented L2 acquisition processes, sociolinguistic patterns are also found, just as in native speech. This dissertation examines the speech of native speakers of Spanish acquiring English in Chile, extending traditional quantitative methodology to L2 contexts, specifically to English as a foreign language (EFL) situations. I examine the variation of four phonetic variables: voiceless alveolar fricative (ʃ), voiceless alveolar affricate (ʧ), and postvocalic (r), which range from stigmatised to prestigious in both Spanish and English; and voiced dental fricative (ð), which has been extensively documented in English, mainly constrained by linguistic factors. Through the analysis of the speech of eighteen university students, I seek to test, firstly, whether the patterns of variation characteristic of Chilean Spanish are transferred to English and secondly, whether the variation exhibited by native speakers of English is replicated in EFL contexts. The results suggest that: (1) the expected transfer of patterns from Chilean Spanish to English does not occur for the variables (ʃ) and (ʧ), and (2) the patterns found in non- native speech in EFL contexts replicates the patterns found in native speakers of English for the variables voiced dental fricative (ð) and postvocalic (r). Amongst the social factors considered, the effect of social class is shown to contribute to the variation of postvocalic (r) and (ʃ), as years of instruction in English did to the variation of (ʃ); in relation to the contribution of internal factors, it is found that phonetic environment and position have an effect on the varying use of (ʃ) and (ð). As predicted for (ð), the effect of purely linguistic factors is confirmed. Thus this study demonstrates that the notion of structured heterogeneity can be extended to contexts of EFL, especially in relation to the effect of internal constraints

Communicative efficiency in the lexicon

Thesis (Ph. D. in Linguistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-160).In this dissertation, I argue that a variety of probabilistic patterns in natural language phonology derive from communicative efficiency. I present evidence from phonetically transcribed dictionaries of 60 languages from 25 major language families showing that both probability distributions over phonological structures licensed by the categorical grammar, and the global organization of the phonological lexicon as a whole facilitate the efficient communication of intended messages from speaker to listener. Specifically, I show that the occurrence probabilities of different grammatical structures render natural language phonology an efficient code for communication given the effort involved in producing different categories and the specific kinds of noise introduced by the human language channel. I also present evidence that co-occurrence restrictions on consonants sharing place features serve a communicative purpose in that they facilitate the identification of words with respect to each other. Furthermore, I show that the organization of the phonological lexicon as a whole is subject to communicative efficiency. Concretely, I show that words in human language preferentially rely on highly perceptible contrasts for distinctness, beyond what is expected from the probabilistic patterning of the individual sounds that distinguish them. This shows that redundancy in the phonological code is not randomly distributed, but exists to supplement imperceptibile distinctions between larger units as needed. I argue that cross-linguistic biases in the distributions of individual sounds arise from humans using their language in ways that accommodate anticipated mistransmission (Jurafsky et al. 2001, van Son and Pols 2003, Aylett and Turk 2004) thus presenting a serious challenge to theories relegating the emergence of communicative efficiency in phonology to properties of the human language channel only (Ohala 1981, Blevins 2004, 2006). Furthermore, I present preliminary computational and experimental evidence that the optimization of the lexicon as a whole could have arisen from the aggregate effects of speakers' biases to use globally distinct word forms over the course of a language's history (cf Martin, 2007).by Peter Nepomuk Herwig Maria Graff.Ph.D.in Linguistic

Bilingual perceptual benefits of experience with a heritage language

Research on the linguistic knowledge of heritage speakers has been concerned primarily with the advantages conferred by heritage language experience in production, perception, and (re)learning of the heritage language. Meanwhile, second-language speech research has begun to investigate potential benefits of first-language transfer in second-language performance. Bridging these two bodies of work, the current study examined the perceptual benefits of heritage language experience for heritage speakers of Korean in both the heritage language (Korean) and the dominant language (American English). It was hypothesized that, due to their early bilingual experience and the different nature of unreleased stops in Korean and American English, heritage speakers of Korean would show not only native-like perception of Korean unreleased stops, but also better-than-native perception of American English unreleased stops. Results of three perception experiments were consistent with this hypothesis, suggesting that benefits of early heritage language experience can extend well beyond the heritage language.The author gratefully acknowledges technical, financial, and logistical support from the Center for Advanced Study of Language, the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, and the Second Language Acquisition Program at the University of Maryland and helpful feedback from four anonymous reviewers and audiences at the CUNY Graduate Center, the 2013 Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, and the 7th Heritage Language Research Institute. (Center for Advanced Study of Language; Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences; Second Language Acquisition Program at the University of Maryland)https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_NoAiLQlnkVXVjZFhCOWc4U3M/view?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_NoAiLQlnkVXVjZFhCOWc4U3M/view?usp=sharingPublished versio

Experience and learning in cross-dialect perception: Derhoticised /r/ in Glasgow

It is well known that unfamiliar accents can be difficult to understand. Previous research has investigated the effect of hearing e.g. foreign-accented speech, but relatively little research has been conducted on the effect of hearing an unfamiliar native English accent. This thesis investigates how listeners process fine phonetic detail for a phonological contrast, measuring their perceptual efficiency depending on their level of experience with the working class Glaswegian dialect. In Glasgow, speakers are stereotypically rhotic. However, recent sociophonetic research indicates a trend towards derhoticisation (the phonetic erosion of postvocalic /r/ in working class Glaswegian speech). The potential for misperception exists when listeners hear minimal pairs such as 'hut/hurt', when spoken by working class speakers who realise postvocalic /r/ as an acoustically ambiguous variant, with delayed tongue tip gesture and early tongue body gesture. This makes derhoticised /r/ perceptually very similar to the preceding open back vowel in both 'hut' and 'hurt', leading to difficulty when listeners try to distinguish between /CʌC/ and /CʌrC/ words in general. This thesis begins with a novel dynamic acoustic analysis of the key cues for rhoticity in Glaswegian for such words, demonstrating that minimal pairs such as 'hut/hurt' are acoustically very similar in the Glaswegian working class accent, but remain distinct for middle class speakers. A suite of listening experiments is then described. Experiment 1 was conceived and run as a pilot study to this work, but new analysis of the data assessed the influence of long-term learning, using Signal Detection Theory as a key analytical tool. This showed strong effects of listener familiarity in both sensitivity and response bias. Experiment 2 tested listeners' ability to learn the distinction between 'hut' and 'hurt' word types, with Response Time and Signal Detection analyses finding that listeners least familiar with the accent very quickly matched the response patterns of listeners with an intermediate level of experience. However, neither listener group was able to match the performance of listeners most familiar with the accent, who were native to Glasgow, suggesting that acoustic phonetic detail plays an important role in perception, with interesting interactions with listener experience. Finally, for Experiment 3 the overarching purpose shifts from offline to online perception. The results of the acoustic analysis showed that dynamics are key, so Experiment 3, a Mouse Tracking experiment, allows for the measurement of dynamic perceptual responses – in a listening context which is more difficult – for the most experienced listeners. It yielded results in terms of Response Time, and two sets of measures capturing cursor trajectories, Area Under the Curve, and Discrete Cosine Transformation. Taken together, the results of these analyses reveal that even for the most experienced listeners (Glaswegians), the phonetically ambiguous tokens present perceptual challenges when hearing working class Glaswegian 'hut' and 'hurt' words, and also demonstrated that challenging listening conditions lead to processing costs, even for the ‘easiest’ stimuli; i.e. when hearing talkers and accents randomised together. This thesis examines a single difficult phonological contrast, with the simplicity of the linguistic scope affording an extremely in-depth analysis. Not only did this provide a clear insight into the perception of the contrast itself, but the depth of analysis allows for a more sophisticated discussion of the results, potentially speaking to wider theoretical standpoints. The results have implications for theories of speech perception, as they may be explained by some general principles which underlie exemplar theories and Bayesian inference. They also constitute valuable acoustic and perceptual contributions to the ongoing research into the complex and changing nature of postvocalic /r/ in Scotland

Training Korean speakers on English vowels and prosody: Individual differences in perception, production and vowel epenthesis

This paper investigates whether intangibles might explain the UK productivity puzzle. We note that since the recession: (a) firms have upskilled faster than before; (b) intangible investment in R&D and software has risen whereas tangible investment has fallen; and (c) intangible and telecoms equipment investment slowed in advance of the recession. We have therefore tested to see if: (a) what looks like labour hoarding is actually firms keeping workers who are employed in creating intangible assets; (b) the current slowdown in TFP growth is due to the spillover effects of the past slowdown in R&D and telecoms equipment investment. Our main findings are: (a) measured market sector real value added growth since the start of 2008 is understated by 1.6% due to the omission of intangibles; (b) 0.75pppa of the TFP growth slowdown can be accounted for by the slowdown in intangible and telecoms investment in the early 2000s. Taken together intangible investment can therefore account for around 5 percentage points of the 16% productivity puzzle