Cross-Linguistic Perception and Learning of Mandarin Chinese Sounds by Japanese Adult Learners

This dissertation presents a cross-linguistic investigation of how nonnative sounds are perceived by second language (L2) learners in terms of their first language (L1) categories for an understudies language pair---Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Category mapping experiment empirically measured the perceived phonetic distances between Chinese sounds and their most resembling Japanese categories, which generated testable predictions on discriminability of Chinese sound contrasts according to Perception Assimilation Model (PAM). Category discrimination experiment obtained data concerning L2 learners' actual performance on discrimination Chinese sounds. The discrepancy between PAM's predictions and actual performances revealed that PAM cannot be applied to L2 perceptual learning. It was suggested that the discriminability of L2 sound contrasts was not only determined by perceived phonetic distances but probably involved other factors, such as the distinctiveness of certain phonetic features, e.g. aspiration and retroflexion. The training experiment assessed the improvement of L2 learners' performance in identifying Chinese sound contrasts with exposure to high variability stimuli and feedback. The results not only proved the effectiveness of training in shaping L2 learners' perception but showed that the training effects were generalizable to new tokens spoken by unfamiliar talkers. In addition to perception, the production of Chinese sounds by Japanese learners was also examined from the phonetic perspective in terms of perceived foreign accentedness. Regression of L2 learners' and native speakers foreign accentedness ratings against acoustic measurements of their speech production revealed that although both segmental and suprasegmental variables contributed to the perception of foreign accent, suprasegmental variables such as total and intonation patterns were the most influential factor in predicting perceived foreign accent. To conclude, PAM failed to accurately predict learning difficulties of nonnative sounds faced by L2 learners solely based on perceived phonetic distances. As Speech Learning Model (SLM) hypothesizes, production was found to be driven by perception, since equivalence classification of L2 sounds to L1 categories prevented the establishment of a new phonological category, thus further resulted in divergence in L2 production. Although production was hypothesized to eventually resemble perception, asynchrony between production and perception was observed due to different mechanisms involved

Consonantal voicing effects on vowel duration in Italian-English bilinguals

This project reported in this dissertation analyzes phonetic details of the speech patterns in one of New York\u27s bilingual communities, asking whether a bilingual speaker can attain native-like proficiency in both languages and the extent to which authenticity — maintenance of language-specific settings — is sustainable. Researchers have established that Italian and English differ strikingly in their characteristic time settings for vowel durations: durations are greater for vowels preceding voiced consonants, e.g., cab, rather than voiceless, e.g., cap. This duration difference, termed the consonantal voicing effect (CVE), is notably greater for English than for Italian. The greater magnitude of the CVE found with English is considered to be a phonological enhancement of a basic phonetic process. Utilizing a speech production task, the study reported compares the performance of Italian-born bilinguals for whom English was acquired in adulthood, as a second language, with that of U.S.-born speakers who experienced simultaneous acquisition of their languages (albeit in an English-dominant setting). In separate sessions for each language, speakers produced utterances in which the target word, situated inside a carrier phrase, contrasted in [voice] value for the post-vocalic consonant, e.g., Say the word « ___ » to me. Stimuli were familiar words selected to sample the vowel inventories for each language and for which the voicing contrast was realized through the inventory of stops common to both languages. Analyses revealed no evidence of influence of the second language on the CVE for the first language for either group, despite an extended immersion period in an English-language environment for the foreign-born speakers and simultaneous exposure to both languages from birth for the U.S.-born speakers. But crucially, there was evidence of an influence of the first language in the timing settings found for the CVE in the second language, for both speaker groups: the foreign-born speakers managed to increase the magnitude of the CVE-English but failed to fully implement the phonological mechanism consistent with larger CVE values for that language; and the U.S.-born speakers managed to reduce the magnitude of the CVE-Italian but failed to fully suppress that same mechanism. Results are discussed in relation to language-specific timing patterns and the extent to which a dominant language may influence production in the non-dominant language

English in Kiribati: a historical, linguistic and sociophonetic report on a Micronesian variety

The 33 islands of Kiribati are situated in Micronesia, in the middle of the Pacific. Contact between islanders and Europeans only began towards the end of the 18th century and has never been intense. No immediately discernible changes were introduced when the islands were eventually claimed by the British; the English language was hardly ever heard. After the Second World War, decolonisation was worked towards and considerably more attention was paid to education, particularly that of English, but progress was slow. Kiribati became independent in 1979 and English an official language to which most have positive attitudes. Moreover, instrumental motivations are commonplace: many want to learn it in order to secure local employment, to participate in international study or labour mobility programs, or to safeguard for a future that is uncertain in light of climate change issues making life on Kiribati more and more difficult. This dissertation is the first sociolinguistic report of English in Kiribati of its kind. It consists of three main parts: firstly, a historical account of how English has arrived and spread; secondly, a detailed description of features of phonetics and phonology, grammar and syntax, lexis and pragmatics, as well as of language use and linguistic attitudes; and thirdly, a sociophonetic analysis of alveolar plosives. These investigations reveal that issues in the educational system prevail and English proficiency levels remain low, that a high degree of substrate influence and parallels to other learner varieties exist, and that affrication establishes a new contrast between alveolar plosive phonemes

Analisis pola Masa Mula Suara konsonan plosif bahasa Melayu yang dihasilkan oleh penutur Mandarin dewasa

Masa Mula Suara (MMS) merupakan penanda akustik yang efektif dalam membezakan kontras penyuaraan bunyi plosif dalam pelbagai bahasa termasuklah bahasa Melayu. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk meneliti pola MMS pada kedudukan awal kata yang dihasilkan oleh penutur monolingual Melayu dan penutur natif Mandarin dalam Bahasa Melayu. Seramai 10 orang penutur natif Mandarin (20-30tahun, M=20.9) telah dipilih sebagai subjek kajian. Sebanyak1080 unit sampel (10 subjek x6 plosif x3 perkataan x3 kali pengulangan) telah direkodkan. Data yang diperoleh dianalisis melalui penelitian spektrogram berasaskan pendekatan fonetik akustik menggunakan perisian PRAAT. MMS yang dihasilkan oleh subjek dalam Bahasa Melayu dan Mandarin dinilai dan dibandingkan dengan data Bahasa Melayu dari kajian lepas. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa terdapat perbezaan signifikan di antara MMS plosif penutur monolingual Melayu dan penutur dwibahasa Mandarin (/b/ (p=0.022) ; /d/ (p=0.028) ; /[g]/ (p=0.009) ; /p/ (p=0.007); /t/ (p=0.009), p<0.05) kecuali bagi plosif /k/ (p=0.574, p>0.05). Sebanyak 70% daripada subjek menghasilkan plosif bersuara /b/ dengan duluan suara, diikuti 40% subjek bagi /d/ dan 20% bagi /[g]/ manakala selebihnya dihasilkan dengan tundaan suara pendek. Sebanyak 66.67% sampel bahasa Melayu yang dihasilkan oleh penutur natif Mandarin menyerupai pola MMS penutur monolingual bahasa Melayu manakala sebanyak 33.33% sampel lagi menyerupai pola MMS Mandarin. Kekerapan penggunaan dan pendedahan kepada bahasa Melayu didapati mempengaruhi proses pemerolehan dan penguasaan kontras suara oleh penutur natif Mandarin dalam bahasa Melayu. Hasil kajian ini dapat memberi maklumat lebih objektif kepada ahli linguistik dan terapis pertuturan dalam menilai pertuturan serta dalam mencipta alat penilaian bahasa yang lebih efektif. Kajian ini juga telah menjelaskan yang pemerolehan bahasa Melayu oleh penutur dwibahasa di Malaysia mempamerkan kebolehan menghasilkan bunyi bahasa Melayu menyerupai pola penutur bahasa Melayu natif. Kemampuan penutur dwibahsa ini menunjukkan sistem pendidikan yang berteraskan sekolah kebangsaan membolehkan penutur bahasa kedua menguasai bahasa Melayu dengan baik

An Investigation of Intelligibility and Lingua Franca Core Features in Indonesian Accented English

Recent approaches to teaching pronunciation of English in second or foreign language contexts have favoured the role of students’ L1 accents in the teaching and learning process with the emphasis on intelligibility and the use of English as a Lingua Franca rather than on achieving native like pronunciation. As far as English teaching in Indonesia is concerned, there is limited information on the intelligibility of Indonesian Accented English, as well as insufficient guidance on key pronunciation features for effective teaching. This research investigates features of Indonesian Accented English and critically assesses the intelligibility of different levels of Indonesian Accented English.English Speech data were elicited from 50 Indonesian speakers using reading texts. Key phonological features of Indonesian Accented English were investigated through acoustic analysis involving spectrographic observation using Praat Speech Analysis software. The intelligibility of different levels of Indonesian Accented English was measured using a transcription task performed by 24 native and non-native English listeners. The overall intelligibility of each accent was measured by examining the correctness of the transcriptions. The key pronunciation features which caused intelligibility failure were identified by analysing the incorrect transcriptions.The analysis of the key phonological features of Indonesian Accented English showed that while there was some degree of regularity in the production of vowel duration and consonant clusters, more individual variations were observed in segmental features particularly in the production of consonants /v, z, ʃ/ which are absent in the Indonesian phonemic inventory. The results of the intelligibility analysis revealed that although light and moderate accented speech data were significantly more intelligible than the heavier accented speech data, the native and non-native listeners did not have major problems with the intelligibility of Indonesian Accented English across the different accent levels. The analysis of incorrect transcriptions suggested that intelligibility failures were associated more with combined phonological miscues rather than a single factor. These results indicate that while Indonesian Accented English can be used effectively in international communication, it can also inform English language teaching in Indonesia

Child L2 phonology acquisition under the influence of multiple varieties

PhD ThesisInput variability is vividly present even in L1 acquisition contexts (Foulkes and Docherty 2006), let alone in an FL/ L2 context where learners are exposed to input in one form from fellow students, to a different variety from the local teacher, and possibly another variety from the institutional model which typically represents the “native-standard norm” (Cook 2008; Regan 2013). However, little is currently known about (second) language acquisition in relation to input multiplicity (cf. Siegel 2010). In fact, it is unclear how L2 acquisition models such as the Speech Learning Model (Flege 1995) or Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) cope with input comprising multiple varieties. Against this backdrop, this study set out to investigate the nature of child L2 phonology acquisition under the influence of multiple varieties and its interface with sociolinguistic factors in Hong Kong (HK). The study looks at L2 English phonology acquisition by Hong Kong Cantonese children when various varieties are present. Specifically, it targets youngsters exposed to Filipino-accented English from live-in housekeepers in addition to the school and community input encompassing UK, US, and HK varieties. Results show that the 31 kindergarteners in their third year of studies aged 4;6 to 6, and the 29 first year secondary school students aged 11 to 14 who had received/were still receiving Filipino-accented English significantly outperformed 34 age-matched controls who were not exposed to such input on a picture-choosing task and a sound discrimination AX3 task targeting Filipino English plosives /p,t,k/ and fricatives /f,v/ (plosive onsets are often unaspirated while /f,v/ are sometimes rendered as [p,b] respectively in this variety (Tayao 2008)). These findings confirm predictions made by L2 speech acquisition theories in that the acquisition of L2 phonology is possible given a sufficient amount of exposure to the target language input. iii However, participants did not produce this variety in the production part of the experiment (a picture naming and a pair matching task) despite showing signs of perceptual knowledge. In addition, a separate instrument (verbal-guise technique) tapping into informants’ attitude towards Filipino-accented English reveals ambivalent attitudes towards this variety, making it challenging for one to resort to speech accommodation (Beebe and Giles 1984) or speech design models (Bell 1984; 2001) for an adequate explanation. This study highlights the complexity involved when multiple varieties are present in the acquisition context, which is arguably the norm rather than the exception in this current age of unprecedented geographic, social, and occupational mobility (Chambers 2002). It also reminds us of the importance of scrutinising from several perspectives the nature of input in L2 phonology (Moyer 2011; Piske and Young-Scholten 2009). Without a clear understanding of the diversity present in the input, it is difficult to make any solid claims about learners’ phonological competence in a given target language. In addition, the seemingly conflicting results on the perceptual and production parts of the study underline how essential it is to analyse the acquisition outcome from several perspectives through task triangulation

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