Sociolinguistic Conditioning of Phonetic Category Realisation in Non-Native Speech

The realisation of phonetic categories reflects a complex relationship between individual phonetic parameters and both linguistic and extra-linguistic conditioning of language usage. The present paper investigates the effect of selected socio-linguistic variables, such as the age, the amount of language use and cultural/social distance in English used by Polish immigrants to the U.S. Individual parameters used in the realisation of the category ‘voice’ have been found to vary in their sensitivity to extra-linguistic factors: while the production of target-like values of all parameters is related to the age, it is the closure duration that is most stable in the correspondence to the age and level of language proficiency. The VOT and vowel duration, on the other hand, prove to be more sensitive to the amount of language use and attitudinal factors

Loan Phonology

For many different reasons, speakers borrow words from other languages to fill gaps in their own lexical inventory. The past ten years have been characterized by a great interest among phonologists in the issue of how the nativization of loanwords occurs. The general feeling is that loanword nativization provides a direct window for observing how acoustic cues are categorized in terms of the distinctive features relevant to the L1 phonological system as well as for studying L1 phonological processes in action and thus to the true synchronic phonology of L1. The collection of essays presented in this volume provides an overview of the complex issues phonologists face when investigating this phenomenon and, more generally, the ways in which unfamiliar sounds and sound sequences are adapted to converge with the native language’s sound pattern. This book is of interest to theoretical phonologists as well as to linguists interested in language contact phenomena

Covariation of acoustic cues for voicing in aphasia and apraxia

Altres ajuts: ANR-11-LABX-0036 (BLRI), ANR-11-IDEX-0001- (A*MIDEX).We report experimental evidence on covariation between vowel onset f0 and voice onset time (VOT) in voiced and voiceless stops produced by Spanish speakers with apraxia of speech and conduction aphasia as compared to a healthy control group. These two disorders are argued to affect different components of the same dorsal stream involved in mapping sounds onto motor-based representations. On the assumption that acoustic cue covariation reflects-albeit indirectly-trade-off relationships in speech production, we explore how these deficits affect compensatory articulation. Our findings show a trade-off relationship between f0 and VOT for voiced but not voiceless stops in the control and conduction aphasia groups, and in some apraxic speakers. Interestingly, the apraxic group shows compensatory cue correlation in devoiced stops. We relate observed patterns in cue trade-off to the internal structure of phonetic categories and compensatory articulation

Production and perception of stop consonants in Spanish, Quichua, and Media Lengua

This dissertation explores the phonetics and phonology of language contact, specifically pertaining to the integration of Spanish voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/ into Quichua, a language with non-contrastive stop voicing. Conflicting areas of convergence of this type appear when two or more phonological systems interact and phonemes from the target language are unknown natively to speakers of the source language. Media Lengua is a mixed language with an agglutinating Quichua morphology, and Quichua syntactic and phonological systems where nearly all the native Quichua vocabulary has been replaced by Spanish. This extreme contact scenario has integrated the voiced stop series into Media Lengua and abundant minimal pairs are present. If the phonological system of Media Lengua is indeed of Quichua origin however, how have speakers integrated the voiced stop series productively and perceptually? Have they adopted different strategies from Quichua speakers? If so, how do they differ? Chapter 1 sets the scene with an in-depth description of how contact between Spanish and Quichua has mutually influenced each language at the morphosyntactic level. Chapter 2 explores voice onset time (VOT) production in all five language varieties. Statistical modeling is used to search for differences in duration while taking into account a number of linguistic and demographic factors. Chapter 3 investigates stop perception in Media Lengua and Quichua, and uses Urban Spanish as a point of comparison. Chapter 4 looks at phonetic pre-nasalization in voiced stops across Media Lengua, Quichua, and Urban Spanish. Chapter 5 describes allophonic variations in stop production. The final chapter speculates on the nature of sound change at the phonetic level and explores possible origins of Media Lengua. Production results show that Media Lengua VOT duration values have shifted away from Quichua towards Rural Spanish. The perceptual results show an age-based effect with older Quichua speakers, which shows more random responses to the stimuli than younger speakers. This effect was not found in Media Lengua or Urban Spanish speakers. Similar age-based results were also found for stop weakening tendencies in Quichua and L2 Spanish speakers, while Media Lengua, Rural, and Urban Spanish speakers were not significantly affected by age

Perception of English and Polish obstruents

Praca niniejsza koncentruje się na kontraście dźwięczna-bezdźwięczna w percepcji angielskich i polskich spółgłosek właściwych. Metodologia badań oparta została na manipulacji akustycznej parametrów temporalnych i spektralnych, które biorą udział w implementacji kontrastu dźwięczności w badanych językach. Porównane zastałych trzy grupy badanych – początkujący uczący się języka angielskiego, zaawansowani użytkownicy języka angielskiego, oraz rodowici mówcy języka angielskiego. Praca składa się z dwóch części teoretycznych, ilustrujących problematykę i kontrastujących strategie implementacji kontrastu dźwięczności w badanych językach, oraz części badawczej, prezentującej zastosowaną metodologię badań oraz analizę wyników. Część pierwsza porusza problem roli percepcji mowy w badaniach językoznawczych. Dotyka takich aspektów jak brak bezpośredniej relacji między sygnałem dźwiękowym a kategorią fonologiczną, wyjątkowa plastyczność i zdolność adaptacyjna ludzkiej percepcji mowy, oraz referuje propozycje dotyczące kompleksowego opisu działania ludzkiej percepcji mowy. W kolejnych podrozdziałach praca omawia percepcję w kontekście kontaktu językowego, a więc rozróżnianie kontrastów akustycznych występujących w języku obcym, ale nieobecnych w języku pierwszym. Zostają również zrecenzowane modele, które taki proces opisują, jak i hipotezy opisujące potencjalny sukces w opanowaniu efektywnej percepcji kontrastów percepcyjnych występujących w języku obcym. Część druga koncentruje się na różnicach temporalnych i akustycznych w implementacji dźwięczności w języku angielskim i polskim. Opisane zostają aspekty takie jak; Voice Onset Time, długość samogłoski, długość zwarcia, długość frykcji, ubezdźwięcznienie, długość wybuchu. Cześć trzecia, badawcza, prezentuje materiał poddany badaniu, metodologię manipulacji materiału, oraz charakterystykę grup. Hipotezy oparte na założeniach teoretycznych są następnie weryfikowane przy pomocy otrzymanych wyników. Część końcowa omawia problemy percepcyjne, jakie spotykają Polaków uczących się języka angielskiego oraz wyciąga wnioski pedagogiczne

Auditory Enhancement and Second Language Experience in Spanish and English Weighting of Secondary Voicing Cues

The role of secondary cues in voicing categorization was investigated in three listener groups: Monolingual English (n=20) and Spanish speakers (n=20), and Spanish speakers with significant English experience (n=16). Results showed that, in all three groups, participants used onset f0 in making voicing decisions only in the positive voice onset time (VOT) range (short lag and long lag tokens), while there was no effect of onset f0 on voicing categorization within the negative VOT range (voicing lead tokens) for any of the participant groups. These results support an auditory enhancement view of perceptual cue weighting: Onset f0 serves as a secondary cue to voicing only in the positive VOT range where it is not overshadowed by the presence of pre-voicing. Moreover, results showed that Spanish learners of English gave a significantly greater weight to onset f0 in their voicing decisions than did listeners in either of the other two groups. This result supports the view that learners may overweight secondary cues to distinguish between non-native categories that are assimilated to the same native category on the basis of a primary cue

Sociololinguistic competence and the bilingual's adoption of phonetic variants: auditory and instrumental data from English-Arabic bilinguals

This study is an auditory and acoustic investigation of the speech production patterns developed by English-Arabic bilingual children. The subjects are three Lebanese children aged five, seven and ten, all born and raised in Yorkshire, England. Monolingual friends of the same age were chosen as controls, and the parents of all bilingual and monolingual children were also taped to obtain a detailed assessment of the sound patterns available in the subjects' environment. The study addresses the question of interaction between the bilingual's phonological systems by calling for a refinement of the notion of a `phonological system' using insights from recent phonetic and sociolinguistic work on variability in speech (e. g. Docherty, Foulkes, Tillotson, & Watt, 2002; Docherty & Foulkes, 2000; Local, 1983; Pisoni, 1997; Roberts, 1997; Scobbie, 2002). The variables under study include /1/, In, and VOT production. These were chosen due to the existence of different patterns in their production in English and Arabic that vary according to contextual and dialectal factors. Data were collected using a variety of picture-naming, story-telling, and free-play activities for the children, and reading lists, story-telling, and interviews for the adults. To control for language mode (Grosjean, 1998), the bilinguals were recorded in different language sessions with different interviewers. Results for the monolingual children and adults in this study underline the importance of including controls in any study of bilingual speech development for a better interpretation of the bilinguals' patterns. Input from the adults proved highly variable and at times conflicted with published patterns normally found in the literature for the variables under study. Results for the bilinguals show that they have developed separate sociolinguistically-appropriate production patterns for each of their languages that are on the whole similar to those of monolinguals but that also reflect the bilinguals' rich socio-phonetic repertoire. The interaction between the bilinguals' languages is mainly restricted to the bilingual mode and is a sign of their developing sociolinguistic competence

Integration of phonological information in obstruent consonant identification

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Linguistics, 2009Speech perception requires the integration of information from multiple phonetic and phonological dimensions. Numerous studies have investigated the mapping between multiple acoustic-phonetic dimensions and single phonological dimensions (e.g., spectral and temporal properties of stop consonants in voicing contrasts). Many fewer studies have addressed relationships between phonological dimensions. Most such studies have focused on the perception of sequences of phones (e.g., 'bid', 'bed', 'bit', 'bet'), though some have focused on multiple phonological dimensions within phones (e.g., voicing and place of articulation in [p], [b], [t], and [d]). However, strong assumptions about relevant acoustic-phonetic dimensions and/or the nature of perceptual and decisional information integration limit previous findings in important ways. New methodological developments in the General Recognition Theory framework enable a number of these assumptions to be tested and provide a more complete model of distinct perceptual and decisional processes in speech sound identification. A Bayesian non-parametric analysis of data from four experiments probing identification of (two sets of) consonants in onset (syllable initial) and coda (syllable final) position indicate that integration of phonological information is partially independent in both perception and decision making for most subjects, and that patterns of independence and interaction vary with the set of phonological dimensions under consideration and with syllable position