THE USE OF SEGMENTATION CUES IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

This dissertation project examined the influence of language typology on the use of segmentation cues by second language (L2) learners of English. Previous research has shown that native English speakers rely more on sentence context and lexical knowledge than segmental (i.e. phonotactics or acoustic-phonetics) or prosodic cues (e.g., word stresss) in native language (L1) segmentation. However, L2 learners may rely more on segmental and prosodic cues to identify word boundaries in L2 speech since it may require high lexical and syntactic proficiency in order to use lexical cues efficiently. The goal of this dissertation was to provide empirical evidence for the Revised Framework for L2 Segmentation (RFL2) which describes the relative importance of different levels of segmentation cues. Four experiments were carried out to test the hypotheses made by RFL2. Participants consisted of four language groups including native English speakers and L2 learners of English with Mandarin, Korean, or Spanish L1s. Experiment 1 compared the use of stress cues and lexical knowledge while Experiment 2 compared the use of phonotactic cues and lexical knowledge. Experiment 3 compared the use of phonotactic cues and semantic cues while Experiment 4 compared the use of stress cues and sentence context. Results showed that L2 learners rely more on segmental cues than lexical knowledge or semantic cues. L2 learners showed cue interaction in both lexical and sublexical levels whereas native speakers appeared to use the cues independently. In general, L2 learners appeared to have acquired sensitivity to the segmentation cues used in L2, although they still showed difficulty with specific aspects in each cue based on L1 characteristics. The results provided partial support for RFL2 in which L2 learners' use of sublexical cues was influenced by L1 typology. The current dissertation has important pedagogical implication as findings may help identify cues that can facilitate L2 speech segmentation and comprehension

On the perception of s and S: considering the effects of phonotactics

The current study explores the interaction between phonological relationships and speech perception. While phonemic status has been thoroughly considered in the speech perception literature, much less research has been devoted to the perception of phones of different phonological status, such as those exhibiting allophony or partial contrast. The goal of the current study was to extend our understanding of partial contrast by considering partial contrast due to phonotactic constraints. Specifically, the research questions were: to what extent do gaps in phonemic distribution affect the perceptual distinctiveness of otherwise contrastive pairs? Within a single language and in a range of environments where a pair of segments differs in degree of contrast, does the degree of perceptual similarity differ, or is perceptual similarity constant no matter the environment?No embarg

The Perception of Epenthetic Vowels in Voiced and Voiceless Contexts in Japanese

Dupoux et al. (1999) showed that Japanese native speakers perceptually inserted a vowel /u/ between consonant clusters when listening to nonce words containing consonant clusters. Our study aimed to examine the effect of voicing type of these clusters on perceptual vowel epenthesis and replicate the results of Dupoux et al. (1999) between English and Japanese. We constructed nonce words containing both voiced and voiceless consonant clusters and the stimuli were recorded by a female English native speaker. 10 English native speakers and 10 Japanese native speakers were recruited and asked to judge whether they heard a /u/ in the stimuli. The results showed that voicing does not have an effect on perceptual vowel epenthesis in Japanese and both Japanese and English participants in our study behaved similarly to their Japanese and French counterparts in Dupoux et al. (1999)

Phonotactic probability and phonotactic constraints :processing and lexical segmentation by Arabic learners of English as a foreign language

PhD ThesisA fundamental skill in listening comprehension is the ability to recognize words. The ability to accurately locate word boundaries(i . e. to lexically segment) is an important contributor to this skill. Research has shown that English native speakers use various cues in the signal in lexical segmentation. One such cue is phonotactic constraints; more specifically, the presence of illegal English consonant sequences such as AV and MY signals word boundaries. It has also been shown that phonotactic probability (i. e. the frequency of segments and sequences of segments in words) affects native speakers' processing of English. However, the role that phonotactic probability and phonotactic constraints play in the EFL classroom has hardly been studied, while much attention has been devoted to teaching listening comprehension in EFL. This thesis reports on an intervention study which investigated the effect of teaching English phonotactics upon Arabic speakers' lexical segmentation of running speech in English. The study involved a native English group (N= 12), a non-native speaking control group (N= 20); and a non-native speaking experimental group (N=20). Each of the groups took three tests, namely Non-word Rating, Lexical Decision and Word Spotting. These tests probed how sensitive the subjects were to English phonotactic probability and to the presence of illegal sequences of phonemes in English and investigated whether they used these sequences in the lexical segmentation of English. The non-native groups were post-tested with the -same tasks after only the experimental group had been given a treatment which consisted of explicit teaching of relevant English phonotactic constraints and related activities for 8 weeks. The gains made by the experimental group are discussed, with implications for teaching both pronunciation and listening comprehension in an EFL setting.Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

Epenthetic vowels in Japanese: A perceptual illusion?

In four cross-linguistic experiments comparing French and Japanese hearers, we found that the phonotactic properties of Japanese (very reduced set of syllable types) induce Japanese listeners to perceive ``illusory'' vowels inside consonant clusters in VCCV stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, we used a continuum of stimuli ranging from no vowel (e.g. ebzo) to a full vowel between the consonants (e.g. ebuzo). Japanese, but not French participants, reported the presence of a vowel [u] between consonants, even in stimuli with no vowel. A speeded ABX discrimination paradigm was used in Experiments 3 and 4, and revealed that Japanese participants had trouble discriminating between VCCV and VCuCV stimuli. French participants, in contrast had problems discriminating items that differ in vowel length (ebuzo vs. ebuuzo), a distinctive contrast in Japanese but not in French. We conclude that models of speech perception have to be revised to account for phonotactically-based assimilations

A note on the generation of allophonic rules

Algorithms modeling the acquisition of allophonic rules by infants need a 'standard' allophonic grammar against which to evaluate their results. Because no wide-covering grammar exist in the literature and, most importantly, because allophonic complexity is a parameter that needs to be controlled, a common workaround has been to apply grammars of artificial allophonic rules to phonemically-transcribed corpora. We present a new algorithm to generate such allophonic rules, enforcing their linguistic plausibility using a description of phonemes in terms of distinctive features. Controlling the size of the allophonic grammar, we are able to generate transcriptions of various phonetic granularities.Les algorithmes modélisant l'acquisition précoce des règles allophoniques ont besoin de grammaires allophoniques de référence pour évaluer leurs résultats. Cependant, aucune grammaire à large couverture n'a encore été décrite et, surtout, la complexité allophonique est un paramètre qu'il est souhaitable de contrôler. Pour pallier ces problèmes, il est d'usage d'appliquer des grammaires de règles allophoniques artificielles à des corpus de parole adressée aux enfants transcrits phonémiquement. Nous présentons un nouvel algorithme permettant de générer de telles règles. La plausibilité linguistique des règles est garantie par l'utilisation d'une description en traits distinctifs des phonèmes. En contrôlant la taille de la grammaire allophonique, nous sommes capables de de générer des transcriptions présentant des granularités phonétiques variées

Syllable-based constraints on properties of English sounds

Also issued as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1989.Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-174).Work sponsored in part by the Office of Naval Research. N00014-82-K-0727Mark A. Randolph

English Loanwords in Ewe: A Phonological Analysis

This paper examines the processes that words borrowed from English go through on the phonological level in their adaptation into Ewe - a Kwa language spoken in Ghana and Togo. The paper analyses the adaptation of English loanwords into Ewe at the level of phonemic adaptation, syllable structure adaptation and the adaptation of stress. In terms of phonemic adaptation, it was found out that certain sounds in the English words borrowed into Ewe are foreign to the speakers of Ewe. In the adaptation process, the speakers replace the foreign sounds with native ones which are acoustically closer to the foreign ones. The analysis reveals that two main operations: deletion and insertion are used to compel foreign syllable structures to conform to the phonotactic constraints of Ewe.  For the adaptation of stress into Ewe, it was realized that stressed syllables in English are generally realized as high tones and unstressed syllables are realized as low tones. The conclusion of this study is that English phonemes are mapped onto Ewe phonetic forms but phonotactic constraints that exist in Ewe result in the processes of deletion and insertion of segments into some English words borrowed into Ewe. Key words: syllable structure, nativization, loanwords, phonotactic constraint