Disfluencies in German adult- and infant-directed speech

Bellinghausen C, Betz S, Zahner K, Sasdrich A, Schröer M, Schröder B. Disfluencies in German adult- and infant-directed speech. In: Proceedings of SEFOS: 1st International Seminar on the Foundations of Speech. Breathing, Pausing and The Voice. 2019: 44-46

EFL students’ uses of um as fillers in classroom presentations

This study examines the filled pause um used by the English Department students of the State Islamic University of Malang during their oral presentations in the classroom. A filled pause such as um is a linguistic expression used to signal hesitation in its immediate context, with the primary function of bringing the listener’s attention to a particular kind of linkage of the upcoming utterance with the immediate discourse context. In achieving the purpose of the study, a total of twenty five oral presentations in English based on different topics were collected and analysed. By using Clark and Tree’s (2002) framework on the use of um, the study shows that the filled pause of um played different roles based on the speaker’s thoughts on feelings of uncertainty. Furthermore, it is also used in almost all positions of utterances, and each of which brings specific meanings. An um is used at the initial position of an utterance to show readiness to open a new sentence, topic, or point of a presentation, to express awkwardness, and to show respect to others. In the middle of an utterance, it is used to detect a problem, to struggle, to find upcoming words, and to restart a conversation. Finally, in the final position of the utterance, it is used as a result of agnosia and to close a presentation. Future research could make use of the findings from the present study to examine the use of filled pauses based on different characteristics among speakers to find out other different functions of filled pauses especially in EFL classroom presentations

Evaluating pause particles and their functions in natural and synthesized speech in laboratory and lecture settings

Pause-internal phonetic particles (PINTs) comprise a variety of phenomena including: phonetic-acoustic silence, inhalation and exhalation breath noises, filler particles “uh” and “um” in English, tongue clicks, and many others. These particles are omni-present in spontaneous speech, however, they are under-researched in both natural speech and synthetic speech. The present work explores the influence of PINTs in small-context recall experiments, develops a bespoke speech synthesis system that incorporates the PINTs pattern of a single speaker, and evaluates the influence of PINTs on recall for larger material lengths, namely university lectures. The benefit of PINTs on recall has been documented in natural speech in small-context laboratory settings, however, this area of research has been under-explored for synthetic speech. We devised two experiments to evaluate if PINTs have the same recall benefit for synthetic material that is found with natural material. In the first experiment, we evaluated the recollection of consecutive missing digits for a randomized 7-digit number. Results indicated that an inserted silence improved recall accuracy for digits immediately following. In the second experiment, we evaluated sentence recollection. Results indicated that sentences preceded by an inhalation breath noise were better recalled than those with no inhalation. Together, these results reveal that in single-sentence laboratory settings PINTs can improve recall for synthesized speech. The speech synthesis systems used in the small-context recall experiments did not provide much freedom in terms of controlling PINT type or location. Therefore, we endeavoured to develop bespoke speech synthesis systems. Two neural text-to-speech (TTS) systems were created: one that used PINTs annotation labels in the training data, and another that did not include any PINTs labeling in the training material. The first system allowed fine-tuned control for inserting PINTs material into the rendered material. The second system produced PINTs probabilistally. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first TTS systems to render tongue clicks. Equipped with greater control of synthesized PINTs, we returned to evaluating the recall benefit of PINTs. This time we evaluated the influence of PINTs on the recollection of key information in lectures, an ecologically valid task that focused on larger material lengths. Results indicated that key information that followed PINTs material was less likely to be recalled. We were unable to replicate the benefits of PINTs found in the small-context laboratory settings. This body of work showcases that PINTs improve recall for TTS in small-context environments just like previous work had indicated for natural speech. Additionally, we’ve provided a technological contribution via a neural TTS system that exerts finer control over PINT type and placement. Lastly, we’ve shown the importance of using material rendered by speech synthesis systems in perceptual studies.This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) within the project “Pause-internal phonetic particles in speech communication” (project number: 418659027; project IDs: MO 597/10-1 and TR 468/3-1). Associate member of SFB1102 “Information Density and Linguistic Encoding” (project number: 232722074)

The effects of teaching communication strategies on Thai learners of English

The issue of teaching and learning communication strategies has been controversial over the past few decades. Whereas some theoretical arguments reject the benefits of teaching of communication strategies, many practical and empirical studies make pedagogical recommendations and support the idea. Nevertheless, there appears to be no information on teaching communication strategies to Thai learners of English in Thailand. To address these issues, this thesis investigates the effects of teaching communication strategies to Thai learners of English in Thailand. It was designed as an interventionist study conducted with a group of students. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected in the current study.Sixty-two fourth year students majoring in Engineering at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok participated in this study. All the students received a 12-week communication strategy-based instruction and 12 students were asked to complete four speaking tasks and retrospective protocols. Data were collected via (1) self-report strategy questionnaire, (2) attitudinal questionnaire (3) transcription data of four different speaking tasks, and (4) retrospective protocols.The results from the self-report strategy questionnaire and the speaking tasks showed that the explicit teaching of communication strategies raised students’ awareness of strategy use and promoted the greater use of taught communication strategies of the students. The students considered the taught strategies in communication strategy instruction useful, especially pause fillers and hesitation devices, approximation, self repair and circumlocution. With respect to the retrospective verbal reports, the findings showed that the students tended to be more aware of the taught communication strategies. They revealed their intention and reasons behind their use of some taught communication strategies in more detail while completing the postspeaking tasks. Finally, the positive outcomes of the teaching of some specific communication strategies were supported by the findings of an attitudinal questionnaire on the strategy instruction. The findings suggest that the students found the communication strategy instruction useful for them. They also showed positive feelings and attitudes towards the communication strategy instruction

Distributional and Acoustic Characteristics of Filler Particles in German with Consideration of Forensic-Phonetic Aspects

In this study, we investigate the use of the filler particles (FPs) uh, um, hm, as well as glottal FPs and tongue clicks of 100 male native German speakers in a corpus of spontaneous speech. For this purpose, the frequency distribution, FP duration, duration of pauses surrounding FPs, voice quality of FPs, and their vowel quality are investigated in two conditions, namely, normal speech and Lombard speech. Speaker-specific patterns are investigated on the basis of twelve sample speakers. Our results show that tongue clicks and glottal FPs are as common as typically described FPs, and should be a part of disfluency research. Moreover, the frequency of uh, um, and hm decreases in the Lombard condition while the opposite is found for tongue clicks. Furthermore, along with the usual F1 increase, a considerable reduction in vowel space is found in the Lombard condition for the vowels in uh and um. A high degree of within- and between-speaker variation is found on the individual speaker level

Can humain association norm evaluate latent semantic analysis?

This paper presents the comparison of word association norm created by a psycholinguistic experiment to association lists generated by algorithms operating on text corpora. We compare lists generated by Church and Hanks algorithm and lists generated by LSA algorithm. An argument is presented on how those automatically generated lists reflect real semantic relations

Learners’ language use during task-based peer interaction in second language class of primary school

This study sets out to explore Second Language (L2) learners’ language use during peer interaction for performing L2 tasks in the primary L2 classroom from the sociocultural perspective. Professional and pedagogical impetus for an enquiry into L2 learners’ language use is provided by the dilemma caused by the gap between an L2 only policy and classroom practice. The issue of L2 learners’ use of L1 within L2 classrooms has been a controversial topic in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), yet to date there has been little research conducted in the primary L2 learning contexts. Therefore, there was a need to examine the actual language use of L2 learners in the primary L2 classroom to gain pedagogical insights and implications related to learners’ language use. To this end, this study conducted a collective case study in intact primary L2 classrooms of two different institutional types: English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes at a state primary school in Seoul, and Korean as a Heritage Language (KHL) classes at a Korean Saturday School in London. Multiple evidence of learners’ language use was gathered and analysed via thematic analysis in terms of distinct features and overall functions. The findings reveal that primary L2 learners frequently codeswitched their language, i.e. shifted their linguistic code between L1 and L2, as budding bilingual speakers; used language strategically through repetition; and used the economy of language through interjections, onomatopoeias, and hesitation fillers. The findings also provide evidence that learners’ language mediated the completion of L2 tasks, serving communicative, cognitive, and socio-affective functions on the interpersonal or the intrapersonal plane. These findings call for several pedagogical reconsiderations: reconceptualising views of L2 learners from imperfect monolinguals to developing bilinguals; reconsidering pedagogical decisions on the L2 only policy; improving L2 textbooks and instructional resources; developing balanced L2 tasks between learners’ L2 competence and cognitive development; enriching and expanding learners’ vocabulary; and finally enhancing teachers’ teaching practice in order to bridge the gap between the policy and learners’ use of language

Proceedings of the VIIth GSCP International Conference

The 7th International Conference of the Gruppo di Studi sulla Comunicazione Parlata, dedicated to the memory of Claire Blanche-Benveniste, chose as its main theme Speech and Corpora. The wide international origin of the 235 authors from 21 countries and 95 institutions led to papers on many different languages. The 89 papers of this volume reflect the themes of the conference: spoken corpora compilation and annotation, with the technological connected fields; the relation between prosody and pragmatics; speech pathologies; and different papers on phonetics, speech and linguistic analysis, pragmatics and sociolinguistics. Many papers are also dedicated to speech and second language studies. The online publication with FUP allows direct access to sound and video linked to papers (when downloaded)