A system for adaptive high-variability segmental perceptual training: Implementation, effectiveness, transfer

Many types of L2 phonological perception are often difficult to acquire without instruction. These difficulties with perception may also be related to intelligibility in production. Instruction on perception contrasts is more likely to be successful with the use of phonetically variable input made available through computer-assisted pronunciation training. However, few computer-assisted programs have demonstrated flexibility in diagnosing and treating individual learner problems or have made effective use of linguistic resources such as corpora for creating training materials. This study introduces a system for segmental perceptual training that uses a computational approach to perception utilizing corpus-based word frequency lists, high variability phonetic input, and text-to-speech technology to automatically create discrimination and identification perception exercises customized for individual learners. The effectiveness of the system is evaluated in an experiment with pre- and post-test design, involving 32 adult Russian-speaking learners of English as a foreign language. The participants’ perceptual gains were found to transfer to novel voices, but not to untrained words. Potential factors underlying the absence of word-level transfer are discussed. The results of the training model provide an example for replication in language teaching and research settings

The effectiveness of integrating commercial pronunciation software into an ESL pronunciation class

This study examines the effectiveness of integrating commercial pronunciation software into an ESL pronunciation class of learners at university level. The study partially replicates Seferoğlu\u27s (2005) research design and seeks to confirm her findings through a revised methodology. Participants in this study were 18 international graduate students from various departments of the Iowa State University in the US. Students were assigned to two experimental groups which received traditional classroom pronunciation instruction and instruction that integrated the use of commercial pronunciation software, respectively, for six weeks. A pretest and a posttest using the same picture-description task were conducted in an attempt to find changes in the students overall pronunciation quality. As measured by the ratings of comprehensibility and accentedness from six native speaker raters, the group receiving software-integrated instruction did not show significant pronunciation improvement after the treatment. Neither did the two groups show significant difference in their pretest and posttest scores. Therefore the results did not confirm Seferoğlu\u27s findings. In addition, the students\u27 reflection on the instruction received was analyzed to explore which features of the two types of pronunciation instruction were considered most useful and least useful by the language learners

Plasticity in second language (L2) learning: perception of L2 phonemes by native Greek speakers of English

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Understanding the process of language acquisition is a challenge that many researchers spanning different disciplines (e.g. linguistics, psychology, neuroscience) have grappled with for centuries. One which has in recent years attracted a lot of attention has been in the area of non-native phoneme acquisition. Speech sounds that contain multiple phonetic cues are often difficult for foreign-language learners, especially if certain cues are weighted differently in the foreign and native languages. Greek adult and child speakers of English were studied to determine which cues (duration or spectral) they were using to make discrimination and identification judgments for an English vowel contrast pair. To this end, two forms of identification and discrimination tasks were used: natural (unedited) stimuli and another ‘modified’ vowel duration stimuli which were edited so that there were no duration differences between the vowels. Results show the Greek speakers were particularly impaired when they were unable to use the duration cue as compared to the native English speakers. Similar results were also obtained in control experiments where there was no orthographic representation or where the stimuli were cross-spliced to modify the phonetic neighborhood. Further experiments used high-variability training sessions to enhance vowel perception. Following training, performance improved for both Greek adult and child groups as revealed by post training tests. However the improvements were most pronounced for the child Greek speaker group. A further study examined the effect of different orthographic cues that might affect rhyme and homophony judgment. The results of that study showed that Greek speakers were in general more affected by orthography and regularity (particularly of the vowel) in making these judgments. This would suggest that Greek speakers were more sensitive to irrelevant orthographic cues, mirroring the results in the auditory modality where they focused on irrelevant acoustic cues. The results are discussed in terms of current theories of language acquisition, with particular reference to acquisition of non-native phonemes.School of Social Sciences, Brunel Universit

EFFECTS OF ONLINE ORAL PRACTICE ON JAPANESE PITCH ACCENTUATION ACQUISITION

Even though there is a constant learners\u27 need for pronunciation instruction in a Japanese language classroom, some teachers are hesitant to include pronunciation instruction due to time constrains or lack of knowledge on how to teach pronunciation. These problems occur due to the fact that pronunciation instructions were mostly conducted in classrooms. Computer-Assisted Language Learning is a great way to overcome these problems since learners can practice pronunciation through an online program outside of class. For this reason, this study was conducted outside of class using an online program. This research investigated the effectiveness of online oral practice on Japanese pitch accentuation and also, out of the three input methods implemented in the study, which input method enhances acquisition the most. Subjects were 171 first-year Japanese students and were divided into three treatment groups and a control group. Each treatment group received different treatments on pitch accentuation: A) pitch mark + text (hiragana) + video, B) text (hiragana) + video, C) video only. The treatment groups received a pretest, pitch accent practice, a posttest, and a delayed posttest. The control group also received a pretest, vocabulary practice unrelated to pitch accent, a posttest, and a delayed posttest. Also, students were asked to participate in a survey. The present research found that all of the online oral practice treatments were effective for acquiring correct pitch accentuation. It also revealed that having visual aids (pitch mark + text) on the screen in addition to video input significantly helped learners to acquire the accents better and retain them longer than not having any visual information. According to the survey, 95.19% of the participants perceived that pitch accent instruction was useful

Outcome of long-term language contact : Transfer of Egyptian phonological features onto Greek in Graeco-Roman Egypt

In this work I have studied the language contact situation between Egyptian and Greek in Roman period Egypt. I have analysed the language use of a corpus written by Egyptian scribe apprentices, OGN I (Ostraca greci da Narmuthis), rich with nonstandard variation due to the imperfect Greek learning of the young scribes. I concentrated on finding Egyptian phonological influence from the misspellings of the vowels that displayed variation atypical for native language writers. Among the nonstandard features were, for example, underdifferentiation of foreign phonemes, the reduction of word-final vowels, allophonic variation that matched Coptic prosodic rules, and coarticulation of consonants on vowels. All of these linguistic characteristics can be found also in the near-phonetic nonstandard spellings of Greek loanwords in Coptic, which I used as parallel reference material. Studying the similarly phonetically-based orthographic variants in Arabic loanwords in Coptic from a later period gave me information on Coptic vowel qualities, by which I could confirm that most of the nonstandard vowel variation in the texts of OGN I was not related to Greek internal phonological development but Egyptian influence. During the project I began to suspect that there might have been an independent Egyptian Greek variety in existence, similarly to for example Indian English, with transfer features from especially the phonological level of Egyptian. I found enough conclusive evidence of a variety of this type to be able to continue research on it after the doctoral dissertation. In order to be able to obtain knowledge of the spoken level of these languages which are no longer spoken, I used modern phonetic research as my aid, and especially concentrated on loanword phonology. I believe I have found enough evidence of the methods of integration of these loanwords and foreign words into Egyptian to be able to contribute to the ongoing debate about whether loan adaptation is based on the phonological level or the phonetic one. I found evidence of both, quite often working simultaneously

Outcome of long-term language contact : Transfer of Egyptian phonological features onto Greek in Graeco-Roman Egypt

In this work I have studied the language contact situation between Egyptian and Greek in Roman period Egypt. I have analysed the language use of a corpus written by Egyptian scribe apprentices, OGN I (Ostraca greci da Narmuthis), rich with nonstandard variation due to the imperfect Greek learning of the young scribes. I concentrated on finding Egyptian phonological influence from the misspellings of the vowels that displayed variation atypical for native language writers. Among the nonstandard features were, for example, underdifferentiation of foreign phonemes, the reduction of word-final vowels, allophonic variation that matched Coptic prosodic rules, and coarticulation of consonants on vowels. All of these linguistic characteristics can be found also in the near-phonetic nonstandard spellings of Greek loanwords in Coptic, which I used as parallel reference material. Studying the similarly phonetically-based orthographic variants in Arabic loanwords in Coptic from a later period gave me information on Coptic vowel qualities, by which I could confirm that most of the nonstandard vowel variation in the texts of OGN I was not related to Greek internal phonological development but Egyptian influence. During the project I began to suspect that there might have been an independent Egyptian Greek variety in existence, similarly to for example Indian English, with transfer features from especially the phonological level of Egyptian. I found enough conclusive evidence of a variety of this type to be able to continue research on it after the doctoral dissertation. In order to be able to obtain knowledge of the spoken level of these languages which are no longer spoken, I used modern phonetic research as my aid, and especially concentrated on loanword phonology. I believe I have found enough evidence of the methods of integration of these loanwords and foreign words into Egyptian to be able to contribute to the ongoing debate about whether loan adaptation is based on the phonological level or the phonetic one. I found evidence of both, quite often working simultaneously

Issues in Austronesian Historical Linguistics

This is a collection of five select articles on Austronesian historical linguistics from the 13-ICAL (International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics) in Taipei in 2015. The papers include "Mora, Vowel Length, and Diachrony: the Case of Arta, a Philippine Negrito Language" by Yukinori Kimoto, "Re-evaluating the Position of Iraya among Philippine Languages" by Lawrence A. Reid, "Reconstructing Proto Kenyah Pronouns and the Development of a True Five Number System" by Alexander D. Smith, "Linguistic Evidence for Prehistory: Oceanic Examples" by Malcolm Ross and "Classifying Old Rapa: Linguistic Evidence for Contact Networks in Southeast Polynesia" by Mary Walworth

Bilinguals' and second language learners' knowledge of Japanese syllable structure

The acquisition of second language phonology has been commanding researchers' attention in recent years. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this area with a study on Japanese as a second language. The thesis explores both the development of phonological competence by post-puberty second language learners and the end state of pre-puberty bilingual acquisition. Reviewing the literature on the theoretical aspects of mora, syllables and syllable structure, we see that the mora is distinctive and plays vital role in Japanese phonology. We next look at the acquisition theories proposed in recent years, and adopt a Universal Grammar-based approach. Comparing first, bilingual and second language acquisition, three research hypotheses are presented: 1) the Mora Assignment Hypothesis, 2) L2 phonological Acquisition and Age Onset Hypothesis, and the 3) Quality and Quantity of Input Hypothesis. To test these hypotheses, a study was designed involving 24 bilingual children and adults, and 94 adult L2 learners of Japanese at varying levels of proficiency. The results provide evidence to support all three research hypotheses. First the data show that the both English-dominant bilinguals and second language learners at all levels deleted morae and all but the beginning second language learners added morae in oral and written production tasks, indicating non-native competence with respect to morae. In addition, learners attempt to preserve the overall mora count. Since English is not a mora sensitive language, the mora conservation exhibited here is from their Japanese. The learners, including English-dominant bilinguals, first become sensitive to the mora and only at a later stage assign segments to the correct mora slot. The difference in performance between English-dominant bilinguals and Japanese-dominant bilinguals was such that by the age of eight, those who had spent more years in Japan demonstrated native phonological competence, whereas the English-dominant bilinguals' performance pointed to non-native competence. With respect to the second and third hypotheses, results from the bilinguals indicate that in addition to age of onset, the amount of exposure to a second language must be taken into account as a factor influencing ultimate attainment. The study also reveals strong influence of literacy in both oral and written production of Japanese