Emphatic accent used by individuals with and without voice and speech training

PURPOSE: To investigate how individuals with and without voice training use emphatic accent in two previously selected words during a reading. METHODS:Seventy seven individuals with ages between 19 and 57 years were distributed into two groups: 51 students from a radio training course - TG (trained group); and 26 subjects with no voice and speech training - UnTG (untrained group). Individuals read a radio report twice, emphasizing two different words in each reading: negotiates and reforms. The readings were recorded with an interval of two months between them, which corresponded to the beginning and end of the radio training course attended by the TG. Voice samples were submitted to: auditory-perceptual analysis of the occurrence, evaluation and use of emphasis; visual analysis of the spectrographic trace for delimitation of the pauses; acoustic analysis of the duration and fundamental frequency of the emphases. Results were submitted to statistical analysis. RESULTS: The TG had higher grades than the UnTG regarding the quality of emphasis use, and there was no difference in its occurrence and use. The word reforms had higher occurrence of emphasis and was better evaluated than the word negotiates. The TG used less pauses than the UnTG. Acoustic analysis showed that the word reforms was longer than negotiates in the UnTG. The mean fundamental frequency was higher for negotiates. CONCLUSION: Both groups demonstrated that the use of emphasis accompanies the individuality of speakers. The TG had better ability in the distribution of pauses. The words were distinctly emphasized due to syntactic and semantic aspects.OBJETIVO: Investigar como indivíduos com e sem treinamento vocal utilizam recursos de ênfase em duas palavras previamente selecionadas na leitura de texto. MÉTODOS: Setenta e sete indivíduos de 19 a 57 anos de idade formaram dois grupos: 51 alunos de curso de radialista denominados grupo treinado - GT e 26 indivíduos sem experiência em locução, denominados grupo não-treinado - GNT. Eles leram uma notícia duas vezes enfatizando, a cada leitura, uma palavra: negocia e reformas. As leituras foram gravadas em dois momentos com intervalo de dois meses entre elas, correspondentes ao início e ao final do curso de radialista do GT. O material foi submetido à avaliação perceptivo-auditiva da ocorrência, avaliação e forma de utilização da ênfase; identificação visual da espectrografia para delimitação das pausas junto às palavras estudadas; análise acústica da duração e frequência fundamental das ênfases. Testes estatísticos foram aplicados. RESULTADOS: GT foi melhor avaliado quanto à qualidade da utilização da ênfase que GNT, não havendo diferença na sua ocorrência e forma de utilização. Reformas teve maior ocorrência de ênfase e foi melhor avaliada que negocia. GT usou menos pausas que GNT. Na análise acústica, reformas durou mais que negocia no GNT. A média da frequência fundamental de negocia foi maior que reformas. CONCLUSÃO: Os grupos comportaram-se de forma semelhante, demonstrando que enfatizar obedece a individualidade dos falantes. GT apresentou mais habilidade na distribuição das pausas. As ênfases ocorreram diferentemente entre as palavras respeitando aspectos sintático-semânticos.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)UNIFESPSciEL

When we fail to question in Japanese

When we pay close attention to the prosody of Wh-questions in Japanese, we discover many novel and interesting empirical puzzles that would require us to devise a much finer syntactic component of grammar. This paper addresses the issues that pose some problems to such an elaborated grammar, and offers solutions, making an appeal to the information structure and sentence processing involved in the interpretation of interrogative and focus constructions

Speech motor control variables in the production of voicing contrasts and emphatic accent

This dissertation looks at motor control in speech production. Two specific questions emerging from the speech motor control literature are studied: the question of articulatory versus acoustic motor control targets, and the question of whether prosodic linguistic variables are controlled in the same way as segmental linguistic variables. In the first study, I test the utility of whispered speech as a tool for addressing the question of articulatory or acoustic motor control targets. Research has been done probing both sides of this question. The case for articulatory specifications is developed in depth in the Articulatory Phonology framework of Haskins researchers (eg. Browman & Goldstein 2000), based on the task-dynamic model of control presented by Saltzman & Kelso (1987). The case for acoustic specifications is developed in the work of Perkell and others (eg Perkell, Matthies, Svirsky & Jordan 1993, Guenther, Espy-Wilson, Boyce, Matthies, Zandipour & Perkell 1999, Perkell, Guenther, Lane, Matthies, Perrier, Vick,Wilhelms-Tricarico & Zandipour 2000). It has also been suggested that some productions are governed by articulatory targets while others are governed by acoustic targets (Ladefoged 2005). This study involves two experiments. In the first, I make endoscopic video recordings of the larynx during the production of phonological voicing contrasts in normal and whispered speech. I discovered that the glottal aperture differences between voiced obstruents (ie, /d) and voiceless obstruents (ie, /t) in normal speech was preserved in whispered speech. Of particular interest was the observation that phonologically voiced obstruents tended to exhibit a narrower glottal aperture in whisper than vowels, which are also phonologically voiced. This suggests that the motor control targets of voicing is different for vowels than for voiced obstruents. A perceptual experiment on the speech material elicited in the endoscopic recordings elicited judgements to see whether listeners could discriminate phonological voicing in whisper, in the absence of non-laryngeal cues such as duration. I found that perceptual discrimination in whisper, while lower than that for normal speech, was significantly above chance. Together, the perceptual and the production data suggest that whispered speech removes neither the acoustic nor the articulatory distinction between phonologically voiced and voiceless segments. Whisper is therefore not a useful tool for probing the question of articulatory versus acoustic motor control targets. In the second study, I look at the multiple parameters contributing to relative prominence, to see whether they are controlled in a qualitatively similar way to the parameters observed in bite block studies to contribute to labial closure or vowel height. I vary prominence by eliciting nuclear accents with a contrastive and a non-contrastive reading. Prominence in this manipulation is found to be signalled by f0 peak, accented syllable duration, and peak amplitude, but not by vowel de-centralization or spectral tilt. I manipulate the contribution of f0 in two ways. The first is by eliciting the contrastive and non-contrastive readings in questions rather than statements. This reduces the f0 difference between the two readings. The second is by eliciting the contrastive and non-contrastive readings in whispered speech, thus removing the acoustic f0 information entirely. In the first manipulation, I find that the contributions of both duration and amplitude to signalling contrast are reduced in parallel with the f0 contribution. This is a qualitatively different behaviour from all other motor control studies; generally, when one variable is manipulated, others either act to compensate or do not react at all. It would seem, then, that this prosodic variable is controlled in a different manner from other speech motor targets that have been examined. In the whisper manipulation, I find no response in duration or amplitude to the manipulation of f0. This result suggests that, like in the endoscopy study, perhaps whisper is not an effective means of perturbing laryngeal articulations

Putting Prosody First – Some Practical Solutions to a Perennial Problem: The Innovalangues Project

This paper presents some of the difficulties of teaching languages, in particular English, in the context of LSP/LAP2 programmes in French universities. The main focus of this paper will be the importance of prosody, especially in English, as an area where these difficulties may be addressed. We will outline the various solutions that are currently being put into place as part of the Innovalangues project, a six-year international language teaching and research project headed by Université Stendhal (Grenoble 3), France. The project has substantial funding from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and its mission is to develop innovative tools and measures to help LSP/LAP learners reach B2 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL). The languages concerned are English, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and possibly French as a foreign language. Initially the project will be focusing on the needs of Grenoble’s students, but the objective is to make the tools and resources developed freely available to the wider community. Oral production and reception are at the heart of Innovalangues. We believe, along with many other researchers, that prosody is key to comprehension and to intelligibility (Kjellin 1999a, Kjellin 1999b, Munro and Derwing 2011, Saito 2012), particularly given the important differences between English and French prosody (Delattre 1965; Hirst and Di Cristo 1998; Frost 2011). In this paper, we will present the particular difficulties inherent in teaching English (and other foreign languages) in the context of ESP/EAP3 in French universities and some of the solutions that we are implementing through this project (Picavet et al., 2012; Picavet et al 2013; Picavet and Frost 2014). These include an e-learning platform for which various tools are being developed, teacher training seminars focusing on prosody and the collection of data for research