Comparison of perception-production vowel spaces for speakers of Standard Modern Greek and two regional dialects

This study compared the perception-production vowel spaces for speakers of Standard Modern Greek and two regional dialects. In experiment 1, participants produced the Greek vowels and chose vowel best exemplars (prototypes) in a natural sentence spoken in the participants’ dialect. In experiment 2, the speakers who had made the recordings for experiment 1 chose themselves vowel prototypes. Cross-dialectal differences were found in both perception and production. Across dialects and experiments, participants’ perceptual space was exaggerated compared to the acoustic one. Because participants’ perceptual space in experiment 2 was calibrated to the participants own voice, perception and production data are directly comparable

Computer-based auditory training improves second-language vowel production in spontaneous speech

The current study examined the effectiveness of computerbased auditory training on Greek speakers’ production of English vowels in read sentences and in spontaneous speech. Another group of Greek speakers served as controls. Improvement was evaluated pre- and post-training via an identification task performed by English listeners and by an acoustic analysis of vowel quality using a combined F1/F2 measure. Auditory training improved English vowel production in read sentences and in spontaneous speech for the trained group, with improvement being larger in read sentences. The results indicate that auditory training can have ecological validity since it enhances learners' production beyond the (read) sentence level

The identification and production of English consonants by Greek speakers

This study examined the identification and production of English consonants by Greek learners of English. Consonant identification was examined in quiet and in two types of noise, a competing talker and an 8-speaker babble. Consonant production was assessed by having English listeners identify the English consonants produced by Greek speakers. Greek speakers achieved higher identification scores in quiet than in noise and the 8-speaker babble had a more detrimental effect in their scores than the competing speaker. Difficulties with specific English consonants were not always similar across modalities; some consonants proved easy to identify but difficult to produce and vice versa

An ear and eye for language: mechanisms underlying second language word learning

To become fluent in a second language, learners need to acquire a large vocabulary. However, the cognitive and affective mechanisms that support word learning, particularly among second language learners, are only beginning to be understood. Prior research has focused on intentional learning and small artificial lexicons. In the current study investigating the sources of individual variability in word learning and their underlying mechanisms, participants intentionally and incidentally learned a large vocabulary of Welsh words (i.e., emulating word learning in the wild) and completed a large battery of cognitive and affective measures. The results showed that, for both learning conditions, native language knowledge, auditory/phonological abilities and orthographic sensitivity all made unique contributions to word learning. Importantly, short-term/working memory played a significantly larger role in intentional learning. We discuss these results in the context of the mechanisms that support both native and non-native language learning

Dialectal effects on the perception of Greek vowels

This study examined cross-dialectal differences on the perception of Greek vowels. Speakers of Standard Modern Greek (SMG) and two dialectal areas (Crete, Kozani), all with five vowels in their systems, chose best exemplar locations (prototypes) for Greek vowels embedded in a carrier sentence spoken by a speaker of their dialect. The results showed that SMG, Cretan and Kozani vowels were well separated in the perceptual space. At the same time, there were dialect-induced differences in the positioning and distances between vowels as well as in the total space area covered by each dialect. The organisation of perceived vowel space therefore seems to be dialect-specific, a finding which is consistent with production studies examining the organisation of the acoustic vowel space

The prenuclear field matters: Questions and statements in standard modern Greek

Within the AM model of intonational phonology, nuclear rather than prenuclear pitch accents typically monopolize our interest as the purported pivots for meaning distinctions among utterances. This paper compares, through one production and two perception experiments, the prenuclear field in statements versus polar questions in Greek, which can be string identical, differing only in intonation. Systematic differences in the prenuclear pitch accents of these two utterance types were found in both their peak alignment and scaling. Moreover, identification and discrimination experiments showed that listeners were attuned to these differences. These results underline the importance of research on the phonetics and phonology of prenuclear pitch accents and their contribution to the meaning of utterances

New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation in the Digital Era - Challenges and Practices

Pronunciation has been a black hole in the L2 Japanese classroom on account of a lack of class time, teacher\u2019s confidence, and consciousness of the need to teach pronunciation, among other reasons. The absence of pronunciation instruction is reported to result in fossilized pronunciation errors, communication problems, and learner frustration. With an intention of making a contribution to improve such circumstances, this paper aims at three goals. First, it discusses the importance, necessity, and e ectiveness of teaching prosodic aspects of Japanese pronunciation from an early stage in acquisition. Second, it shows that Japanese prosody is challenging because of its typological rareness, regardless of the L1 backgrounds of learners. Third and finally, it introduces a new approach to teaching L2 pronunciation with the goal of developing L2 comprehensibility by focusing on essential prosodic features, which is followed by discussions on key issues concerning how to implement the new approach both inside and outside the classroom in the digital era

Prosody and Second Language Teaching: Lessons from L2 Speech Perception and Production Research

Despite the well-attested importance of prosody in second language (L2) learning and the development of widely accessible software packages that can be used for analysing the prosodic aspects of speech, the teaching of L2 prosody is usually neglected in classroom settings. This article reviews important findings from L2 speech perception and production research that can be of use to teachers and practitioners involved in language pedagogy. What these findings demonstrate is that (a) L2 speech learning in general, as well as L2 intonation learning in particular, is feasible even in adulthood and (b) computer-assisted training with highly-variable auditory feedback and visual feedback in the form of pitch tracks can facilitate learning. Freely available acoustic analysis programs developed by the research community that can be used for teaching L2 intonation will also be discussed

Perceptual Assimilation and L2 Learning: Evidence from the Perception of Southern British English Vowels by Native Speakers of Greek and Japanese

This study examined the extent to which previous experience with duration in first language (L1) vowel distinctions affects the use of duration when perceiving vowels in a second language (L2). Native speakers of Greek (where duration is not used to differentiate vowels) and Japanese (where vowels are distinguished by duration) first identified and rated the eleven English monophthongs, embedded in /bVb/ and /bVp/ contexts, in terms of their L1 categories and then carried out discrimination tests on those English vowels. The results demonstrated that both L2 groups were sensitive to durational cues when perceiving the English vowels. However, listeners were found to temporally assimilate L2 vowels to L1 category/categories. Temporal information was available in discrimination only when the listeners’ L1 duration category/categories did not interfere with the target duration categories and hence the use of duration in such cases cannot be attributed to its perceptual salience as has been propose