Marginal contrast in loanword phonology:Production and perception

Though Dutch is usually described as lacking a voicing contrast at the velar place of articulation, due to intense language contact and heavy lexical borrowing, a contrast between /k/ and /g/ has recently been emerging. We explored the status of this contrast in Dutch speakers in both production and perception. We asked participants to produce loanwords containing a /g/ in the source language (e.g., goal) and found a range of productions, including a great many unadapted [g] tokens. We also tested the same speakers on their perception of the emerging [k] ~ [g] contrast and found that our participants were able to discriminate the emerging contrast well. We additionally explored the possibility that those speakers who use the new contrast more in production are also better at perceiving it, but we did not observe strong evidence of such a link. Overall, our results indicate that the adoption of the new sound is well advanced in the population we tested, but is still modulated by individual-level factors. We hold that contrasts emerging through borrowing, like other phonological contrasts, are subject to perceptual and functional constraints, and that these and other ‘marginal contrasts’ must be considered as full-fledged parts of phonology

FROM PHENOMENOLOGY OF LANGUAGE TO A THEORY OF SOCIOLOGICAL PRAXIS: PERCEPTION, IDEOLOGY, AND MEANING IN MULTIMODAL LINGUISTIC DISCOURSE

Linguistics has prioritized the auditory mode of transmission in language at the expense of written forms and their relevance to the social construction of meaning and identity. Due to the privilege of spoken language as the least-mediated form of symbolic expression, the significant role non-verbal linguistic communication plays in social life is often overlooked. Through the perspectives of cognitive and perceptual forms of epistemology, written forms of language can and do influence reception to non-verbal utterance in a socially significant manner. Ideologies of language predispose linguistic and anthropological research against considerations of written linguistic artifacts and their roles in constituting ascribed social meaning. Signed forms of utterance are constrained by standardization and grammaticality, which in turn iconize and erase written language variation. When written variation is intentionally produced, it creates perceptually derived, ideologically charged responses that affect social attitudes and discourses. I address the methods and foci of sociolinguistic research for their pertinence to non-spoken language. I then analyze variation in written language in the domains of audiovisual animated media and African American dialect literature to show how socially significant responses to written variation create stratification by constructing fictive speech classes which are indexed to real speech communities. This investigation aims to clarify how modes of language transmission share properties assumed to be domain-specific, as well as to warrant a reexamination of the phonocentric concept of language in linguistic anthropology. As written forms of language are central to digital media, traditional sociolinguistic research must account for the written word just as it does the spoken

Marginal contrast in loanword phonology: Production and perception

Though Dutch is usually described as lacking a voicing contrast at the velar place of articulation, due to intense language contact and heavy lexical borrowing, a contrast between /k/ and /g/ has recently been emerging. We explored the status of this contrast in Dutch speakers in both production and perception. We asked participants to produce loanwords containing a /g/ in the source language (e.g., goal) and found a range of productions, including a great many unadapted [g] tokens. We also tested the same speakers on their perception of the emerging [k] ~ [g] contrast and found that our participants were able to discriminate the emerging contrast well. We additionally explored the possibility that those speakers who use the new contrast more in production are also better at perceiving it, but we did not observe strong evidence of such a link. Overall, our results indicate that the adoption of the new sound is well advanced in the population we tested, but is still modulated by individual-level factors. We hold that contrasts emerging through borrowing, like other phonological contrasts, are subject to perceptual and functional constraints, and that these and other ‘marginal contrasts’ must be considered as full-fledged parts of phonology

A Qualitative Study of Language Beliefs and Linguistic Knowledge in Preservice Teachers Using the Intercultural Communicative Competence Framework

Since 1980, the number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English at home has increased by 140% (United States Census Bureau, 2010). Therefore a greater percentage of students now are multilingual. Throughout the world, multilingualism is considered the norm and monolingualism is the exception (Auer & Wei, 2008). In the United States, however, policies regarding instruction in schools are still influenced by monolingual ideology that carries expectations and assumptions of assimilation, loss of mother tongues, and defined hierarchical structures. As classroom populations become socially, ethnically, racially, and linguistically more diverse, it is increasingly important for teachers to have an understanding of how to address diversity in schools and for educators to understand how language use and the teachers\u27 role in the classroom impacts learning. This paper explored the existing language beliefs and linguistic knowledge of preservice teachers as they prepare to enter linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. The increasing prominence of cross-cultural interactions creates a necessity for teachers to develop intercultural competence. Employing a conceptual framework of intercultural communicative competence theory, this qualitative study investigated experiences and knowledge in linguistics that influence teacher speech acts. Research in fields of applied linguistics such as psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and educational linguistics revealed basic language knowledge that teachers need before they enter diverse classrooms including knowledge of language acquisition, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, culture, instruction language, and how the brain processes language. The literature from these fields was used to create an instrument that included a demographics questionnaire, beliefs survey, linguistic knowledge assessment, and interview questions. Twenty-three preservice teachers participated in the study to describe their language beliefs and knowledge. Many of the findings in this study reflected key-findings in the literature; however, this study also found several significant findings that extend existing research. The results revealed significant impacts of 1) individual experiences with culture and linguistic contact, 2) the language used in classrooms, specifically languages other than Standard English and the deep and surface structure of language, 3) linguistic knowledge, specifically phonology, 4) meta-cognitive behavior and reflection, and 5) differences between monolingual and multilingual preservice teachers. The data also indicated that the majority of preservice teachers were concerned about preparedness in teaching in diverse classrooms. Implications for teachers working in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms and for teacher preparation programs are discussed

English pronunciation teaching and learning: a focus on connected speech

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Cross-language perception and production of English vowels by Portuguese learners: the effects of perceptual training

Doctoral Dissertation in Language Sciences Specialization in English LinguisticsSeveral studies have demonstrated that second/foreign language (L2/FL) speech learning is a challenge to late learners (i.e., adolescents or adults) in terms of perception and production of certain non-native phonemic and phonetic contrasts (Moyer, 2013). The interaction of different factors might explain learners’ difficulties, namely age of onset of learning (AOL), amount of native (L1) and non-native language (NNL) use over time, quantity and quality of NNL input, and the interference from the L1 phonological system (Piske, 2007). The Speech Learning Model (SLM), proposed by Flege (1995), hypothesizes that difficulties in perceiving and, consequently, in producing non-native contrasts are due to the (dis)similarities between the L1 and the NNL phonological systems. The L1 sound system is likely to hinder the formation of new non-native (L2/FL) phonological categories. However, a considerable number of cross-language studies has revealed that phonological learning is attainable for late learners, and their abilities in perceiving and producing segmental and suprasegmental non-native contrasts can improve, since the mechanisms used in the acquisition of the L1 sound system remain intact over the lifespan and can be applied to L2/FL learning (Flege, 1995). Experimental studies that investigated the effects of perceptual training on non-native speech sound perception and production reported its success not only in the modification of adult learners’ perceptual patterns, but also in the improvement of their pronunciation accuracy, confirming, thereby, the plasticity of L2/FL learners’ mature perceptual system (e.g., Aliaga-Garcia, 2013; Pereira & Hazan, 2013; Wang, 2008; Wang et al., 2003). Difficulties in the perception of non-native vowel contrasts have been widely described as a significant part of the problems learners have in L2/FL phonological acquisition/learning (Strange, 2007). Therefore, the present study investigated the effects of perceptual training on the learning of three English contrasts (/i/-/ɪ/; /ɛ/-/æ/; /u/-/ʊ/) by a group of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. This set of vowel contrasts was selected due to reported difficulties European Portuguese native speakers have in perceiving and producing them (Flege, 1994, as cited in Flege, 1995; Rato et al., 2013). The English phonological categories /ɪ/, /æ/ and /ʊ/ tend to be assimilated to the Portuguese vowel sounds /i/, /ɛ/ and /u/, respectively, and no distinction between the two vowels of each pair is made, due to their acoustic and articulatory proximity. Specifically, this study investigated (i) whether a high variability perceptual training, which included stimuli with different phonemic contexts produced by multiple native talkers, had a positive effect on the perception of the English target segments; (ii) if transfer of improvement to oral production was observed; (iii) whether perceptual learning generalized to identification of new words produced by novel talkers; and (iv) if long-term training effects remained. The participants’ perception was assessed three times with an identification test designed with natural stimuli: (1) before the auditory training – pretest; (2) immediately after the training was over – posttest; and (3) two months later – delayed posttest. The perceptual training program consisted of five sessions divided into two blocks, which included discrimination tasks and identification sequences followed by immediate feedback. Production was tested simultaneously in the three phases by means of a sentence-reading task with the target vowel segments. The results show that the Portuguese learners’ performance in the identification of the English vowels improved significantly, and perceptual gains were retained two months after completion of the training sessions. Moreover, the results of the generalization test indicate that there was robust learning of the two front vowel pairs. Acoustic analyses of spoken data revealed that phonological learning transferred to production. In sum, these results support the claim that perceptual learning can occur in a formal non-naturalistic environment within a short period of time and corroborate previous findings on the malleability of L2/FL adult learners’ perceptual systems.Vários estudos têm demonstrado que, na aprendizagem de uma língua não materna (LNM), a perceção e a produção de determinados contrastes fonológicos e fonéticos não nativos são um desafio para aprendentes tardios (adolescentes ou adultos) (Moyer, 2013). Diversos fatores podem explicar essas dificuldades, tais como a idade do início da aprendizagem, a frequência de uso, a quantidade e a qualidade de exposição à LNM e a influência do sistema fonológico da língua materna (L1) (Piske, 2007). O Speech Learning Model (SLM), desenvolvido por Flege (1995), explica que as dificuldades percetivas e, consequentemente, produtivas se devem ao facto de o sistema de sons linguísticos da L1 impedir a formação de novas categorias fonológicas para a segunda língua ou língua estrangeira (L2/LE). No entanto, um número considerável de estudos tem revelado que aprendentes tardios podem aprender a perceber e a produzir contrastes segmentais e suprassegmentais não nativos, uma vez que os mecanismos usados para aprender o sistema de sons da L1 são ativados na aprendizagem de uma LNM e permanecem intactos durante toda a vida (Flege, 1995). Estes estudos empíricos, que investigaram os efeitos do treino percetivo na perceção e produção de sons não nativos, reportaram a sua eficácia não somente na modificação de padrões percetivos, mas também na melhoria da capacidade produtiva dos mesmos, confirmando assim a plasticidade do sistema percetivo dos aprendentes de LNMs (por exemplo, Aliaga- Garcia, 2013; Pereira & Hazan, 2013; Wang, 2008; Wang et al., 2003). Os resultados de extensa investigação indicam que as dificuldades na perceção de contrastes vocálicos não nativos são uma parte significativa dos problemas que os aprendentes revelam na aquisição/aprendizagem fonológica de uma L2/LE (Strange, 2007). Portanto, no presente estudo, investigaram-se os efeitos do treino percetivo na aprendizagem de três contrastes vocálicos da língua inglesa (/i/-/ɪ/; /ɛ/-/æ/; /u/-/ʊ/) por um grupo de aprendentes de inglês como LE. Estes três contrastes foram escolhidos devido às dificuldades percetivas e produtivas que falantes nativos de português europeu revelam na sua aprendizagem (Flege, 1994, citado em Flege, 1995; Rato et al., 2013). As categorias fonológicas /ɪ/, /æ/ e /ʊ/ da L2/LE tendem a ser assimiladas como sons da L1, /i/, /ɛ/ e /u/, respetivamente, não se verificando qualquer distinção entre as vogais dos três contrastes, devido à sua proximidade acústica e articulatória. Especificamente, pretendeu-se (i) observar o efeito de um treino percetivo de alta variabilidade, que incluiu estímulos produzidos por vários locutores nativos em diferentes contextos fonológicos, na melhoria da capacidade percetiva dos segmentos-alvo; (ii) averiguar a transferência da melhoria para a produção oral; (iii) verificar a generalização para novos contextos e novos falantes; e (iv) analisar os efeitos do treino a longo prazo. A perceção dos participantes foi testada três vezes com uma tarefa auditiva de identificação com estímulos naturais: (1) antes do treino – pré-teste; (2) imediatamente depois do treino – pós-teste; e (3) dois meses mais tarde – teste de retenção. O programa de treino consistiu em cinco sessões, divididas em dois blocos, que incluíram tarefas de identificação e de discriminação auditivas seguidas de correção imediata. A produção foi testada, igualmente, em três fases, através da leitura de frases veículo, contendo palavras com os segmentos vocálicos. Os resultados demonstram que os aprendentes portugueses melhoraram significativamente na identificação das vogais-alvo e essa melhoria da sua competência percetiva manteve-se dois meses após o término do treino. Para além disso, os resultados do teste de generalização indicam que houve uma aprendizagem robusta dos dois contrastes vocálicos anteriores. As análises acústicas das produções dos informantes revelaram também uma transferência da aprendizagem para a produção oral. Estes resultados suportam a afirmação de que a aprendizagem ao nível da perceção de fala pode ocorrer em contextos formais, num curto período de tempo, e corroboram resultados anteriores sobre a maleabilidade dos sistemas percetuais fonológicos de aprendentes adultos de uma LNM