UNIVERSELLE OG SPROGSPECIFIKKE TRÆK I SPÆDBØRNS PERCEPTION AF SPROGLYDE

Børn er født med en lang række perceptuelle evner, som sætter dem i stand til at tilegne sig de sprog, som tales i deres omgivelser. Nyfødte børn kan skelne mellem næsten alle konsonanter, der bliver brugt i verdens sprog til at signalere betydningsforskelle, uanset om konsonanterne forekommer i de(t) sprog, børnene hører. Selvom børnenes universelle perceptuelle evner begrænses til de sprogspecifikke evner, voksne har, når de er mellem 7 og 11 måneder gammel, går de oprindelige evner ikke tabt, men kan genoplives, når vi senere i livet lærer andre sprog. Denne artikels hovedvægt ligger på spædbørns vokalperception, som har ikke fået lige så meget opmærksomhed som konsonantperception. I vores forskning med canadiske, danske og tyske spædbørn fandt vi universelle perceptuelle asymmetrier, som vi mener, har stor betydning for børnenes vokaludvikling. Derudover viser voksne de samme perceptionsmønstre som spædbørn, når deres evne til at skelne mellem vokaler fra fremmedsprog testes

Native Danish listeners’ evaluation of English accents

This paper examines native Danish listeners' attitudes towards five native English accents and some of the factors which are likely to influence listeners' evaluations. Forty-seven native Danish listeners participated in a verbal guise test in which they rated samples from five English varieties on status/competence (the power dimension), solidarity and voice quality dimensions, and had to guess the speaker's origin: Standard Southern British English (SSBE), General American (GA), Australian English (AUS), Scottish English (SCO), and Southern US English (SUS). Additionally, the listeners stated their accent preference and responded to questions regarding their English media consumption. The standard varieties SSBE and GA were rated highly on the power dimension, but downgraded on solidarity. The varieties AUS, SCO, and SUS were rated more positively on solidarity, but downgraded on power. SUS was correctly identified most frequently, followed by SSBE and GA, while the listeners had problems identifying SCO and AUS correctly. Accent preference and English media consumption were related to some of the individual traits, and the listeners' ability to identify GA correctly was related to their English media consumption. Overall, the present results suggest that future studies should examine the influence of media consumption on attitudes towards accents in greater detail

En psykolingvistisk test til kvantificering af progression i indlæringen af italiensk som fremmedsprog: metoder og resultater

This article describes a psycholinguistic protocol designed to elicit individual differences in performance regarding phonological (sound discrimination) and lexical (vocabulary memorization) aspects of learning Italian as a foreign language. An experiment built on that protocol revealed a wide range among participants regarding the number of novel vocabulary items memorized as well as a minor spread regarding the discrimination of a novel Italian consonant contrast. No correlation could be revealed between learning success in vocabulary acquisition and phonological discrimination. We conclude that the two types of tasks can be used as instruments for quantifying aspects of learning Italian as a foreign language

Let us have articles betwixt us: Papers in Historical and Comparative Linguistics in Honour of Johanna L. Wood

Papers in Historical and Comparative Linguistics in Honour of Johanna L. Woo

The Sign of the V: Papers in Honour of Sten Vikner

‘The Sign of the V’ is a festschrift in honour of Sten Vikner, written by friends, colleagues, and collaborators, present and past, to celebrate both his 60th birthday and his contribution to the field of linguistics. The papers cover a wide range of topics in theoretical and empirical linguistic research, from phonetics and phonology, through morphology, semantics, and syntax, to pragmatics, as well as language acquisition, second-language learning, language processing, language teaching, language contact, historical linguistics, and language variation and change. Many different languages are featured, including the Scandinavian languages (i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish), Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, West Flemish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Scots, and Yiddish. The scope and depth of the chapters in this anthology is a clear indication of the scope and depth of Sten Vikner’s own comparative research well as his impact on the field of linguistics.‘The Sign of the V’ is a festschrift in honour of Sten Vikner, written by friends, colleagues, and collaborators, present and past, to celebrate both his 60th birthday and his contribution to the field of linguistics. The papers cover a wide range of topics in theoretical and empirical linguistic research, from phonetics and phonology, through morphology, semantics, and syntax, to pragmatics, as well as language acquisition, second-language learning, language processing, language teaching, language contact, historical linguistics, and language variation and change. Many different languages are featured, including the Scandinavian languages (i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish), Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, West Flemish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Scots, and Yiddish. The scope and depth of the chapters in this anthology is a clear indication of the scope and depth of Sten Vikner’s own comparative research well as his impact on the field of linguistics

The Sign of the V: Papers in Honour of Sten Vikner

‘The Sign of the V’ is a festschrift in honour of Sten Vikner, written by friends, colleagues, and collaborators, present and past, to celebrate both his 60th birthday and his contribution to the field of linguistics. The papers cover a wide range of topics in theoretical and empirical linguistic research, from phonetics and phonology, through morphology, semantics, and syntax, to pragmatics, as well as language acquisition, second-language learning, language processing, language teaching, language contact, historical linguistics, and language variation and change. Many different languages are featured, including the Scandinavian languages (i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish), Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, West Flemish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Scots, and Yiddish. The scope and depth of the chapters in this anthology is a clear indication of the scope and depth of Sten Vikner’s own comparative research well as his impact on the field of linguistics.‘The Sign of the V’ is a festschrift in honour of Sten Vikner, written by friends, colleagues, and collaborators, present and past, to celebrate both his 60th birthday and his contribution to the field of linguistics. The papers cover a wide range of topics in theoretical and empirical linguistic research, from phonetics and phonology, through morphology, semantics, and syntax, to pragmatics, as well as language acquisition, second-language learning, language processing, language teaching, language contact, historical linguistics, and language variation and change. Many different languages are featured, including the Scandinavian languages (i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish), Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, West Flemish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Scots, and Yiddish. The scope and depth of the chapters in this anthology is a clear indication of the scope and depth of Sten Vikner’s own comparative research well as his impact on the field of linguistics

Native-language phonetic and phonological influences on perception of American English approximants by Danish and German listeners

Perception of non-native consonant contrasts may be influenced by phonetic, as well as phonological, properties of the listener’s native language. The impact of both factors on perception of American English /r l w j/ was investigated with native speakers of Danish and German, which have /r l j/ but lack /w/, thus employing /r/-/l/ but lacking /w/-/j/ and /w/-/r/ as phonological contrasts. However, while the three languages realize /j/ identically, Danish/German ‘‘light’’ alveolar [l] differs modestly from English ‘‘dark’’ [ ł] (velarized), Danish pharyngeal and labiodental approximant realizations of/r, v/ are more similar to English /r, w/than are German uvular and labiodentals fricative realizations, and Danish is richer in approximants than English or German. Phonetic similarities perceptually outweighed phonological correspondences: Danish listeners’ performance on /w/-/r/ and /r//l/ approached that of English speakers, and discrimination of /w/-/j/ was remarkably higher than English speakers’, all largely irrespective of spoken English experience. German listeners’ identification of all contrasts was highly categorical, but discrimination was poorer than English and Danish listeners’ for /w/-/r/ and /r/-/l/ and fell in between those two groups for /w/-/j/. Thus, cross-language phonetic relationships among corresponding (or neighboring) phonemes strongly influence perception. Together with systemic consideration of English, Danish, and German vowel and approximant subsystems, our results indicate that non-native speech perception is affected not only by the phonological contrastiveness and phonetic realizations of the target phonemes in the listeners’ language, but also by broader systemic factors such as phonological subclasses

Testing PAM and SLM : perception of American English approximants by native German listeners

This study examined the impact of phonetic and phonological properties of L1 German (GE) on the perception of the American English (AE) approximant contrasts /r/-/l/, /w/-/r/, and /w/-/j/. GE does not have /w/, it realizes /r/ and /l/ differently from AE, and GE and AE /j/ are realized nearly identically. Thus, German lacks /w/-/j/ and /w/-/r/, but employs /r/-/l/ with a “light” [l] (as opposed to AE “dark” [ɫ]) and a uvular fricative [ʁ] (as opposed to AE “retroflex” [ɻ]). Forced-choice identification and AXB discrimination of /Cɑk/ syllables revealed both phonological and phonetic influences on the perception of AE approximants. GE listeners’ identification of all contrasts was highly categorical, but discrimination was poorer than AE listeners’ for /w/-/r/ and /r/-/l/ and better than AE listeners’ for /w/-/j/. Phonologically-based predictions were correct only for one contrast, /r/-/l/. Neither Best’s Perceptual Assimilation Model nor Flege’s Speech Learning Model were fully successful in predicting how L1 GE listeners perceived AE approximants