The different time course of phonotactic constraint learning in children and adults : evidence from speech errors

Speech errors typically respect the speaker’s implicit knowledge of language-wide phonotactics (e.g., /ŋ/ cannot be a syllable onset in the English language). Previous work demonstrated that adults can learn novel experimentally-induced phonotactic constraints by producing syllable strings in which the allowable position of a phoneme depends on another phoneme within the sequence (e.g., /t/ can only be an onset if the medial vowel is /i/), but not earlier than the second day of training. Thus far, no work has been done with children. In the current 4-day experiment, a group of Dutch-speaking adults and nine-year-old children were asked to rapidly recite sequences of novel word-forms (e.g., kieng nief siet hiem) that were consistent with phonotactics of the spoken Dutch language. Within the procedure of the experiment, some consonants (i.e., /t/ and /k/) were restricted to onset or coda position depending on the medial vowel (i.e., /i/ or “ie” versus /øː/ or “eu”). Speech errors in adults revealed a learning effect for the novel constraints on the second day of learning, consistent with earlier findings. A post-hoc analysis at trial-level showed that learning was statistically reliable after an exposure of 120 sequence-trials (including a consolidation period). In contrast, cChildren, however, started learning the constraints already on the first day. More precisely, the effect appeared significantly after an exposure of 24 sequences. These findings indicate that children are rapid implicit learners of novel phonotactics, which bears important implications for theorizing about developmental sensitivities in language learning

Nonword Repetition and Interactions Among Vocabulary, Phonotactic probability, and Phonological Awareness in Four Linguistic Groups

The current study was designed to compare the English nonword repetition accuracy in 7-year-old monolingual English, Korean–English bilingual, Chinese–English bilingual, and Spanish–English bilingual children. The relationships among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and phonotactic probability in each group of children were also examined. The results indicated significant differences among the groups’ accuracy of consonants and vowels by syllable length. Different correlational patterns emerged among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, and phonological awareness. Theoretical and clinical implications for the use of nonword repetition tasks for children from various linguistic backgrounds are discussed

Phonetic drift

This chapter provides an overview of research on the phonetic changes that occur in one’s native language (L1) due to recent experience in another language (L2), a phenomenon known as phonetic drift. Through a survey of empirical findings on segmental and suprasegmental acoustic properties, the chapter examines the features of the L1 that are subject to phonetic drift, the cognitive mechanism(s) behind phonetic drift, and the various factors that influence the likelihood of phonetic drift. In short, virtually all aspects of L1 speech are subject to drift, but different aspects do not drift in the same manner, possibly due to multiple routes of L2 influence coexisting at different levels of L1 phonological structure. In addition to the timescale of these changes, the chapter discusses the relationship between phonetic drift and attrition as well as some of the enduring questions in this area.https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eQbh17Z4YsH8vY_XjCHGqi5QChfBKcAZhttps://drive.google.com/open?id=1eQbh17Z4YsH8vY_XjCHGqi5QChfBKcAZhttps://drive.google.com/open?id=1eQbh17Z4YsH8vY_XjCHGqi5QChfBKcAZAccepted manuscriptAccepted manuscrip

Spoken word classification in children and adults

Purpose: Preschool children often have difficulties in word classification, despite good speech perception and production. Some researchers suggest they represent words using phonetic features rather than phonemes. We examine whether there is a progression from feature based to phoneme based processing across age groups, and whether responses are consistent across tasks and stimuli. Method: In Study 1, 120 3 to 5 year old children completed three tasks assessing use of phonetic features in classification, with an additional 58 older children completing one of the three tasks. In Study 2, all of the children, together with an additional adult sample, completed a nonword learning task. Results: In all four tasks, children classified words sharing phonemes as similar. In addition, children regarded words as similar if they shared manner of articulation, particularly word-finally. Adults also showed this sensitivity to manner, but across the tasks there was a pattern of increasing use of phonemic information with age. Conclusions: Children tend to classify words as similar if they share phonemes or share manner of articulation word finally. Use of phonemic information becomes more common with age. These findings are in line with the theory that phonological representations become more detailed in the preschool years

Phonological Factors Affecting L1 Phonetic Realization of Proficient Polish Users of English

Acoustic phonetic studies examine the L1 of Polish speakers with professional level proficiency in English. The studies include two tasks, a production task carried out entirely in Polish and a phonetic code-switching task in which speakers insert target Polish words or phrases into an English carrier. Additionally, two phonetic parameters are studied: the oft-investigated VOT, as well as glottalization vs. sandhi linking of word-initial vowels. In monolingual Polish mode, L2 interference was observed for the VOT parameter, but not for sandhi linking. It is suggested that this discrepancy may be related to the differing phonological status of the two phonetic parameters. In the code-switching tasks, VOTs were on the whole more English-like than in monolingual mode, but this appeared to be a matter of individual performance. An increase in the rate of sandhi linking in the code-switches, except for the case of one speaker, appeared to be a function of accelerated production of L1 target items

Native Speaker Perceptions of Accented Speech: The English Pronunciation of Macedonian EFL Learners

The paper reports on the results of a study that aimed to describe the vocalic and consonantal features of the English pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners as perceived by native speakers of English and to find out whether native speakers who speak different standard variants of English perceive the same segments as non-native. A specially designed computer web application was employed to gather two types of data: a) quantitative (frequency of segment variables and global foreign accent ratings on a 5-point scale), and b) qualitative (open-ended questions). The result analysis points out to three most frequent markers of foreign accent in the English speech of Macedonian EFL learners: final obstruent devoicing, vowel shortening and substitution of English dental fricatives with Macedonian dental plosives. It also reflects additional phonetic aspects poorly explained in the available reference literature such as allophonic distributional differences between the two languages and intonational mismatch

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

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

Acceleration in the bilingual acquisition of phonological structure: evidence from Polish–English bilingual children

This study examines the production of consonant clusters in simultaneous Polish-English bilingual children and in language-matched English monolinguals (aged 7;01- 8;11). Selection of the language pair was based on the fact that Polish allows a greater range of phonologically complex cluster types than English. A nonword repetition task was devised in order to examine clusters of different types (obstruent-liquid vs. s + obstruent) and in different word positions (initial vs. medial), two factors that play a significant role in repetition accuracy in monolingual acquisition (e.g. Kirk & Demuth, 2005). Our findings show that bilingual children outperformed monolingual controls in the word initial s + obstruent condition. These results indicate that exposure to complex word initial clusters (in Polish) can accelerate the development of less phonologically complex clusters (in English). This constitutes significant new evidence that the facilitatory effects of bilingual acquisition extend to structural phonological domains

Forming New Vowel Categories in Second Language Speech: The Case of Polish Learners' Production of English /I/ and /e/

The paper concentrates on formation of L2 English vowel categories in the speech of Polish learners. More specifically, it compares distribution of two English categories - /I/ and /e/ relative to neighbouring Polish vowels. 43 participants recorded Polish and English vowels in a /bVt/ context. First two formants were measured at a vowel midpoint and plotted on a vowel plane. The results reveal that while a separate /I/ category is formed fairly effectively in Polish learners pronunciation of English, a category of /e/ is almost completely subsumed by a Polish vowel /ϵ