An acoustic investigation of the developmental trajectory of lexical stress contrastivity in Italian

We examined whether typically developing Italian children exhibit adult-like stress contrastivity for word productions elicited via a picture naming task (n=25 children aged 3\u20135 years and 27 adults). Stimuli were 10 trisyllabic Italian words; half began with a weak\u2013strong (WS) pattern of lexical stress across the initial 2 syllables, as in patata, while the other half began with a strong\u2013weak (SW) pattern, as in gomito. Word productions that were identified as correct via perceptual judgement were analysed acoustically. The initial 2 syllables of each correct word production were analysed in terms of the duration, peak intensity, and peak fundamental frequency of the vowels using a relative measure of contrast\u2014the normalised pairwise variability index (PVI). Results across the majority of measures showed that children\u2019s stress contrastivity was adult-like. However, the data revealed that children\u2019s contrastivity for trisyllabic words beginning with a WS pattern was not adult-like regarding the PVI for vowel duration: children showed less contrastivity than adults. This effect appeared to be driven by differences in word-medial gemination between children and adults. Results are compared with data from a recent acoustic study of stress contrastivity in English speaking children and adults and discussed in relation to language-specific and physiological motor-speech constraints on production

The Acoustic Correlates of Lexical Stress in Disyllabic Words in El Salvadorian-Accented English

Experiments on lexical stress in English conducted by Fry (1955, 1958) propose that the acoustic correlate strategy is F0\u3eDuration\u3eIntensity. The results of his findings provide good insights on American English speaker’s perception and production of lexical stress in disyllabic homographs. On the other hand, some studies conducted in Spanish lexical stress propose that the most prominent acoustic correlate is duration (Ortega-Llebaria and Prieto, 2010); another study propose that intensity is a relevant cue when marking lexical stress (Urrutia, 2007). Other studies have investigated English lexical stress produced by Spanish speakers (Edmunds, 2009). Such experiments have analyzed Spanish produced by speakers from Spain or Chile, but not from Central America. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate acoustic correlates of lexical stress in disyllabic words in El Salvadorian-accented English and their impact on intelligibility. Eight disyllabic words were analyzed using TextGrids created in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). The words were recorded from and produced by 21 Salvadorian (11 female and 10 male) speakers of English. The recordings were retrieved from the Speech Accent Archive website (Weinberger, 2015). Three acoustic correlates of lexical stress (F0, duration and intensity) were measured, and Just Noticeable Differences (JND’s) were used to judge which acoustic correlate speakers employed to mark stress. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics that provided summaries about the measurements. The results of the study showed the acoustic correlate strategy employed by female and male speakers respectively. Moreover, results yielded information that had not been foreseen at the beginning of the study, but that would be interesting to research further

Pitch as the Main Determiner of Italian Lexical Stress Perception Across the Lifespan : Evidence From Typical Development and Dyslexia

The study deals with the issue of lexical stress perception in both a developmental (comparing children and adults with typical development) and a clinical perspective (comparing typically developing children and children with dyslexia). The three parameters characterizing the acoustic profiles of words and non-words in a certain language are duration, pitch and intensity of its syllables. Based on (sparse) previous literature on Italian and other European languages, it was expected that syllable duration would be the parameter predominantly determining the perception of stress position. It was furthermore anticipated that children with dyslexia may be found to have an altered perception of lexical stress, due to their impairments in auditory processing of either pitch, duration or (more controversial) intensity. Systematic manipulation of the pitch, duration and intensity profiles of three Italian trisyllabic non-words produced a series of 81 stimuli, that were judged with respect to stress position (perceived on the ultimate, penultimate, or antepenultimate syllable) by the three groups of participants. The results showed, contrarily to expectations, that the pitch component is the most reliable acoustic cue in stress perception for both adults, in whom this dominance is very strong, and typically developing children, who showed a similar but quantitatively less marked pattern. As to children with dyslexia, they did not seem to rely on any parameter for their judgments, and rather gave random responses, which point to a general inability to process the various acoustic modulations that normally contribute to stress perception. Performance on the stress perception task strongly correlates with language (morphosyntactic) measures in the whole sample of children, and with reading abilities in the group with dyslexia, confirming the strict relationship between the two sets of skills. These findings seem to support a language-specific approach, suggesting that the set of acoustic parameters required for the development of stress perception is language-dependent rather than universal

Exploring the use of Technology for Assessment and Intensive Treatment of Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Given the rapid advances in technology over the past decade, this thesis examines the potential for automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology to expedite the process of objective analysis of speech, particularly for lexical stress patterns in childhood apraxia of speech. This dissertation also investigates the potential for mobile technology to bridge the gap between current service delivery models in Australia and best practice treatment intensity for CAS. To address these two broad aims, this thesis describes three main projects. The first is a systematic literature review summarising the development, implementation and accuracy of automatic speech analysis tools when applied to evaluation and modification of children’s speech production skills. Guided by the results of the systematic review, the second project presents data on the accuracy and clinical utility of a custom-designed lexical stress classification tool, designed as part of a multi-component speech analysis system for a mobile therapy application, Tabby Talks, for use with children with CAS. The third project is a randomised control trial exploring the effect of different types of feedback on response to intervention for children with CAS. The intervention was designed to specifically explore the feasibility and effectiveness of using an app equipped with ASR technology to provide feedback on speech production accuracy during home practice sessions, simulating the common service delivery model in Australia. The thesis concludes with a discussion of future directions for technology-based speech assessment and intensive speech production practice, guidelines for future development of therapy tools that include more game-based practice activities and the contexts in which children can be transferred from predominantly clinician-delivered augmented feedback to ASR-delivered right/wrong feedback and continue to make optimal gains in acquisition and retention of speech production targets

When the same form does not have the same function: how mothers’ lexical repetitions shape the children’s emerging linguistic and interactional skills

One of the main problems recipients and speakers have to face when using lexical repetitions is to distinguish the action the speaker is doing when uttering a repetition. The multi-functionality of repetitions makes it harder to explain some of the ambiguities involved in their analysis, and it calls for an analytic division between different actions done by repetitions in which the same form may be used for different functions. Following the interactional phonetics methodological approach, this thesis integrates the methodology of Conversation Analysis and instrumental and impressionistic phonetics to show how mothers and their children negotiate the action done by mothers’ repetitions of the children’s previous turns in everyday Brazilian Portuguese conversations. Repetitions to affirm are used as a way of approving the children’s articulatory performance and labeling ability. Here the repetition matches the children’s prior turn pitch pattern and have minimised phonetic differences. Repetitions to correct pronunciation are produced with significant difference in articulation and pitch pattern, as compared to the child’s prior realisation. The phonetic cues are understood by the children as an invitation to correct their prior turn. Mothers’ repetitions to correct the child’s lexical choice are produced with a distinctive rise-fall intonation contour. The children treat the repetitions as a hearing trouble on the mother’s side, while the mothers’ subsequent talk provides evidence that in fact she had designed the repetition with the aim of correcting the children’s lexical choice. Repetitions to request confirmation are produced also with a rise-fall contour. Mothers and children seem to orient to the repetition in the same way, since both treat them as a request of confirmation. The results show that the children’s ability to understand repetitions addressing pronunciation problems, to affirm and to request confirmation come before the ability to understand repetitions that address problems of lexical choice

Lexical Stress Sensitivity and Reading in English: A Systematic Review and Two Empirical Explorations among Korean-English Bilinguals

The present dissertation explores the relationship between lexical stress and reading in English. The dissertation comprises three studies: one systematic review and two empirical studies. Study 1 aims to disentangle the relationship between English lexical stress and reading by systematically reviewing the empirical studies published in the last 20 years. Study 2 examines Korean-English bilingual adults’ (N = 41) sensitivity to different cues to stress assignment during multisyllabic nonword reading in English, and its contribution to reading. Last, Study 3 investigates 3rd to 5th grade Korean-English bilingual children’s (N = 39) stress cue sensitivity, and its relationship with reading ability in English. In the systematic review, 20 studies comprised the final sample for coding based on inclusion/exclusion criteria. Overall, the study showed that lexical stress sensitivity is significantly associated with word reading in English. The findings further demonstrated some ambiguities in using different measures for stress sensitivity. The empirical studies focused on two major cues to stress assignment in English: (1) Orthographic cues which refer to probabilistic information of particular word endings that are associated with stress patterns and (2) morphological cues which refer to English derivational suffixes that provide information for stress assignment. The empirical studies also explored the contribution of stress cue sensitivity to English reading ability among two groups of Korean-English bilinguals. Study 2 revealed that Korean-English bilingual adults relied on both stress cues, and no statistically significant differences were found between the cues. Study 2 confirmed that the bilingual adults’ stress cue sensitivity was related to their English reading. Study 3 also showed that Korean-English bilingual children were sensitive to the two stress cues with better performance on the orthographic cues to stress assignment task than the morphological cues task. However, no significant correlations were found among the bilingual children’s stress cue sensitivity measures and reading performances. Taken together, the present dissertation emphasizes the importance of stress sensitivity and its relationship with reading in English. The empirical studies contributed to the scarce literature on stress processing among the bilingual population. The dissertation also discusses research and pedagogical implications of stress sensitivity and reading in English

Urdu Vowel System and Perception of English Vowels by Punjabi-Urdu Speakers

A well-defined vocalic and consonantal system is a prerequisite when investigating the perception and production of a second language. The lack of a well-defined Urdu vowel system in the multilingual context of Pakistan motivated investigation of the acoustic and phonetic properties of Urdu vowels. Due to the significant influence of a number of first languages, the study focuses on the Urdu spoken in Punjab, Pakistan. A production experiment reports the acoustic properties of the monophthongs and six diphthongs in Urdu. The results showed that Urdu distinguishes between short and long vowels, and lacks an open-mid front and an open-mid back vowel. Since the central vowel is fairly open and retracted, it appears that the central vowel space is empty. This was reflected in the difficulty of perceiving the central vowels of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) by Punjabi Urdu speakers. The acoustic and phonetic evidence partially supports the phonetic existence of diphthongs in Urdu. The acoustic investigation of the Urdu vowel system helped to predict the perceptual assimilation and classification patterns of SSBE vowels by Punjabi-Urdu speakers. A cross-language perceptual assimilation and a free classification experiment was conducted in three different consonantal contexts to test the predictions of three mainstream models of L2 perception: SLM, PAM and L2LP. The assimilation patterns in a cross-language and category goodness rating task varied according to familiarity with the target language. The patterns of perceptual assimilation failed to predict the perceptual similarity of the SSBE vowels in the auditory free classification task. Thus, the findings support the model predictions with regard to the role of L1; however acoustic similarities between L1 and L2 neither predict the patterns of cross-language perceptual assimilation nor perceptual similarity

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

Modelling phonologization: vowel reduction and epenthesis in Lunigiana dialects

Building upon wave-theoretic assumptions, this dissertation provides a formal description of the relationship between diatopic/diachronic micro-variation and phonologization. In particular, an analysis is performed of the phonetic/phonological properties of unstressed vowel reduction and vowel insertion in two Northern Italian dialects: Carrarese and Pontremolese. These dialects are argued to represent two frozen stages of these processes’ diffusion, Carrarese representing the diachronic stage Pontremolese has already gone through. Indeed, Pontremolese displays non-etymological vocoids that show the phonetic and phonological characteristics of epenthetic vowels and that, crucially, can be considered the phonologized correlates of Carrarese’s intrusive vocoids. These, in turn, should be rather considered articulatory/perceptually driven vowel-like releases. A formal account of this diatopic, diachronic and grammatical relationship is given that supports a modular grammar architecture, in which phonetics and phonology constitute two autonomous modules. Within such an architecture, the lateral forces (government and licensing) developed by standard Government Phonology are translated into violable constraints and inserted in a BiPhon grammar. In this optimality-theoretic grammar, the phonetics-phonology interface is managed by a set of cue constraints that map acoustic dimensions (formant structures) onto phonological primitives (elements). Furthermore, to integrate morphological information in the phonological forms, the Coloured Containment Theory is resorted to.Language Use in Past and Presen