Phonetics and Phonology Commons^™

Providing Objective Metrics Of Team Communication Skills Via Interpersonal Coordination Mechanisms, Celine De Looze, Brian Vaughan, Finnian Kelly, Alison Kay

Conference Papers

Being able to communicate efficiently has been acknowledged as a vital skill in many different domains. In particular, team communication skills are of key importance in the operation of complex machinery such as aircrafts, maritime vessels and such other, highly-specialized, civilian or military vehicles, as well as the performance of complex tasks in the medical domain. In this paper, we propose to use prosodic accommodation and turn- taking organisation to provide objective metrics of communica- tion skills. To do this, human-factors evaluations, via a coordi- nation Demand Analysis (CDA), were used in conjunction with a dynamic model of prosodic accommodation …

Test-Retest Reliability Of Independent Phonological Measures Of 2-Year-Old Speech, Katherine Wittler, Shari L. Deveney

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This poster discusses: Background, Research Question, Methods, Results, Conclusions, Clinical Implications, and Limitations & Future Directions.

The Linguistic Features Of Deceptive Speech, Jared Albrecht, Michal Temkin Martinez (Mentor)

Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research

Research on deception within the field of linguistics has been largely focused upon the lexical aspect of lies. However, while the words a liar uses may reveal the lie in some cases, there are certain prosodic features of speech (e.g. pitch or tempo) that may be correlated to lying. This study focuses on these features in an attempt to decode deception. In an experiment with a representative sample of a university campus population, participants were asked to lie for science in a game of ‘Two Truths and a Lie’. Each participant’s speech was recorded while they constructed spontaneous truths and …

Central Auditory Processing And The Link To Reading Ability In Adults, Lisa M. Brody

Honors Scholar Theses

What makes someone a good reader? What makes someone a poor reader? The root biological marker of reading ability has yet to be determined. Many scientists agree that phonological awareness, the understanding of speech sounds, and phonological decoding are key components of reading ability (Melby-Lervag, Lyster, & Hulme, 2012). In addition to this, new research suggests that the auditory system, specifically the timing of auditory processing in the brain, provides a crucial platform that supports the development of reading ability (Banai et al., 2009). This thesis provides empirical data to support the link between reading skill …

Use Of Phonetics In The Beginner French Classroom: An Analysis Of Textbooks, Melissa B. Scarbrough

Honors Scholar Theses

Textbooks are a common resource for teachers in a variety of content areas, as such it is important that teachers know whether or not textbooks are aligned to standards and current research. This study investigates if common textbooks, reported to be in use in schools across Connecticut, are aligned to recent second language acquisition and French linguistics studies.

The Effects Of Cued Speech On Phonemic Awareness Skills, Jessica M. Phillips

Masters Theses

Research suggests phonemic awareness is enhanced through multimodality training. Cued Speech is a multimodality system that combines hand signs with mouth movements to represent phonemes of the spoken language. This system has been utilized successfully in developing phonological awareness with children with hearing loss. However, no research is available on its effectiveness with children who are not deaf or hard-of-hearing. The efficacy of the use of Cued Speech for the enhancement of phonological skills in typically developing 1st grade students was evaluated in this study. Twenty-six 1^st graders identified as low-achieving readers by their classroom teachers were administered the …

The Effect Of Short-Term Study Abroad On Second Language Spanish Phonetic Development, Silvina Bongiovanni, Avizia Y. Long, Megan Solon, Erik Willis

Faculty Publications

This study explores the impact of study abroad (SA) on second language Spanish phonetic development. Twenty-seven English-speaking learners of Spanish, 15 who were participating in a 4-week SA program in the Dominican Republic and 12 who were studying at their home (AH) institution, were recorded 5 weeks apart (at the approximate beginning and end of their respective programs). Recordings were analyzed acoustically, and four groups of segments were examined: word-initial /p t k/, intervocalic /b d ɡ/, intervocalic /ɾ/ and /r/, and word-final /l/. Productions at Time 1 and Time 2 as well as between the SA and AH groups …

Student Teachers’ Cognition About L2 Pronunciation Instruction: A Case Study, Michael Burri

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In view of the minimal attention pronunciation teacher preparation has received in second language (L2) teacher education, this study examined the cognition (i.e. beliefs, thoughts, attitudes and knowledge) development of 15 student teachers during a postgraduate subject on pronunciation pedagogy offered at an Australian tertiary institution. Findings revealed that, as a result of taking the subject, student teachers’ cognition shifted from teaching individual sounds (i.e. segmentals) to favouring a more balanced approach to pronunciation instruction. That is, teaching the melody of the English language (i.e. suprasegmentals) was seen as important as teaching segmentals. Non-native speakers’ self-perceived pronunciation improvement, an increase …

What Predicts The Effectiveness Of Foreign Language Pronunciation Instruction?: Investigating The Role Of Perception And Other Individual Differences, Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

This study investigated second language (L2) learners’ perception of L2 sounds as an individual difference that predicted their improvement in pronunciation after receiving instruction. Learners were given explicit pronunciation instruction in a series of modules added to their Spanish as a foreign language curriculum and were then tested on their pronunciation accuracy. Their perception of the target sounds was measured with an AX discrimination task. Though the best predictor of pronunciation posttest score was pretest score, perception made a unique and significant contribution. The other factors associated with better pronunciation of some L2 sounds were time spent using Spanish outside …

Comparison Of Two Word Learning Techniques And The Effect Of Neighborhood Density For Late Talkers, Shari L. Deveney, Cynthia J. Cress, Robert Reid

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

The investigators compared two techniques for teaching expressive vocabulary to late talkers: modeling with an expectant pause and modeling with an evoked child production. They also explored the influence of neighborhood density on children’s real word learning. Three late talkers (ages 25–33 months) received two alternating vocabulary treatments (expectant pause and evoked production) in the home. Two participants were identified as having an expressive language delay, and one participant was identified as having an expressive and receptive language delay. During the expectant pause treatment, the clinician paused several seconds after each target word model, looking at the child expectantly. In …

Implications Of Autosegmental Analysis In The Exploration Of Prosodic Phonology In Mandarin Chinese, Kristen Frazier

Senior Honors Theses

Autosegmental Phonology (Goldsmith, 1979) is a theoretical framework for understanding the phonological effects of suprasegmentals such as tone, stress, etc. Using data taken from an experiment in which Mandarin Chinese tone sandhi (the acknowledged rules governing specific tone shifts across segments) is explored, a number of phonologists, specifically Kenstowicz (2003), have shown that the relationship between the segment and the tone is autonomous. In the experiment, non-sense words with a potential tone sandhi rule are presented to the Mandarin speakers. The speakers automatically apply the tone sandhi rule which is then analyzed using an autosegmental framework. The speakers consciously separate …

The Use Of Play In Speech And Occupational Therapy, Jodi Ehrenkranz, Caroline Laferla

Psychology and Child Development

Sensory Processing Disorder and speech impairment affect millions of children in the United States. Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) affects a child’s development leading to difficulties with “detecting, modulating, interpreting, and/or organizing sensory stimuli” (Miller, Nielsen & Schoen, 2012, p.804). Furthermore, these children may find it difficult to self-regulate their behavior. Speech impairment is typically described as speech sound disorders (SSD), which involves a child having difficulties with communicating or correctly producing their native language (Brumbaugh, Smit, Nippold & Marinellie, 2013). Brumbaugh et al. (2013) also found that these children were likely to develop a poor self-image which provides even more …

L2 Perception Of Spanish Palatal Variants Across Different Tasks, Christine Shea, Jeffrey Renaud

Spanish: Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works

While considerable dialectal variation exists, almost all varieties of Spanish exhibit some sort of alternation in terms of the palatal obstruent segments. Typically, the palatal affricate [ɟʝ] tends to occur in word onset following a pause and in specific linear phonotactic environments. The palatal fricative [ʝ] tends to occur in syllable onset in other contexts. We show that listeners’ perceptual sensitivity to the palatal alternation depends upon the task and exposure to Spanish input. For native Spanish listeners, the palatal alternation boosts segmentation accuracy on an artificial speech segmentation task and also reduces latencies on a phonotactically-conditioned elision task. L2 …

Seen And Not Heard: The Relationship Of Orthography, Morphology, And Phonology In Loanword Adaptation In The German Hip Hop Community Online, Matt Garley

Publications and Research

In this study, a particular development in language behavior, the use of the -ed suffix from English in both participle and non-participle contexts, is investigated in the domain of the German hip hop community. This morphological-orthographic feature is analyzed from a linguistic and distributional standpoint in a 12.5 million word corpus of German hip hop discussion, revealing its patterns of use over a decade in both contexts within this community, along with supplemental examples from YouTube videos. This corpus analysis is paired with a case study of a discourse event between two forum participants negotiating the use of this form, …

Engagement Differences For 2-Year-Olds Identified As Late Talker, Brianna E. Hendrickson, Shari L. Deveney

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

The investigators compared engagement in language-rich activities for 2-year-olds identified as late talkers and their typically developing peers. Participants included twelve 2-year-old children ranging in age from 24- to 33-months of age (M = 27 months; SD= 2.906), three were identified as being typically developing, five were identified as having expressive-only language delay, and four were identified as having expressive and receptive language delay. From videotaped interactions, child behaviors were coded as unengaged (e.g., uninvolved with any specific people, objects, or symbols), onlooking (e.g., watching researcher or parent activity, but not taking part), person engaged (e.g., involved solely …

Phonological Profiles Of 2-Year-Olds With Expressive-Only And Expressive And Receptive Language Delay: A Pilot Study, Kristin Vanwyngaarden, Shari L. Deveney

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This poster discusses: Background, Research Question, Methods, Results, Conclusions, Clinical Implications, and Limitations & Future Directions.

Teaching Pronunciation: Is Explicit Phonetics Instruction Beneficial For Fl Learners?, Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Pronunciation instruction has been shown to improve learners’ L2 accent in some, though certainly not all, cases. A core component of traditional pronunciation instruction is explicit lessons in L2 phonetics. Studies suggest that Spanish FL learners improve their pronunciation after receiving instruction, but the effect of phonetics instruction has not been directly compared with other pedagogical alternatives. This study reports on the pronunciation gains that first, second, and third year learners (n = 95) made after receiving either explicit instruction in Spanish phonetics or a more implicit treatment with similar input, practice, and feedback. The target phones included a …

Accent In Uspanteko, Ryan Bennett, Robert Henderson

English Faculty Research Publications

Uspanteko (Guatemala; ∼2000 speakers) is an endangered K’ichean-branch Mayan language. It is unique among the K’ichean languages in having innovated a system of contrastive pitch accent, which operates alongside a separate system of non-contrastive stress. The prosody of Uspanteko is of general typological interest, given the relative scarcity of ‘mixed’ languages employing both stress and lexical pitch. Drawing from a descriptive grammar and from our own fieldwork, we also document some intricate interactions between pitch accent and other aspects of the phonology (stress placement, vowel length, vowel quality, and two deletion processes). While pitch accent is closely tied to morphology, …

Pedagogía De Hablantes De Herencia: Implicaciones Para El Entrenamiento De Instructores Al Nivel Universitario, Lina M. Reznicek-Parrado

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study researches the differences in pedagogical needs between learners of Spanish as a Foreign Language (FL learners) and learners of Spanish as a Heritage Language (HL learners) at the university level. By using the UNL Modern Languages and Literatures Department as an illustrative case and based on an analysis of the Heritage Language student profile in the context of the United States, this study seeks to explore arguments in favor of providing training for university-level instructors of Spanish that responds to the specific pedagogical needs of Heritage Language Learners.

The relevancy of this study is not only based on …

Misheard Me Oronyminator: Using Oronyms To Validate The Correctness Of Frequency Dictionaries, Jennifer G. Hughes

Master's Theses

In the field of speech recognition, an algorithm must learn to tell the difference between "a nice rock" and "a gneiss rock". These identical-sounding phrases are called oronyms. Word frequency dictionaries are often used by speech recognition systems to help resolve phonetic sequences with more than one possible orthographic phrase interpretation, by looking up which oronym of the root phonetic sequence contains the most-common words.

Our paper demonstrates a technique used to validate word frequency dictionary values. We chose to use frequency values from the UNISYN dictionary, which tallies each word on a per-occurance basis, using a proprietary text corpus, …

Phonological Parameters Of Indigenous And Asl Country Name-Signs, Carolyn J. Stephens

Journal of Interpretation

This investigation was guided by the following research questions: What are the American Sign Language (ASL) and indigenous signs for each country in the world? What phonological features do they exhibit? Are these features consistent with previous research on ASL? The research presented in this article is the result of a project that provides a comprehensive online compilation of country-name signs. A website was created to display both written descriptions and videos of the signs, and 180 countries with 314 total variations were identified, documented, recorded, coded and analyzed. A thorough literature review was conducted and an analysis of phonological …

[Sabbatical Report], Elizabeth Winkler

Sabbatical Reports

I am working to develop a English-Kpelle dictionary database for use in the electronic world as well as various paper dictionaries to be published and used primarily in Liberia. I input over 2200 entries into a database. Entries include information about pronunciation, meaning, grammar, spelling, etymology and related words. This database will be uploaded to the website as well as formatted for paper publication of the dictionaries.

Phonological Adaptations Of English Loanwords In Turkish, Rachel Beel, Jennifer Felder

Other Undergraduate Scholarship

When trying to understand the phonological system of a language (the sounds used in speech), what are some of the ways to figure out the patterns of an unfamiliar language? The way that borrowed or loanwords (words taken from one language and used in another) are pronounced in a language reveals much about the language’s phonology. The phonological system of Turkish has accommodated for starkly different syllable structures when incorporating modern English words into this contrasting language.

A personal survey of Turkish syllable structure has revealed how native speakers of Turkish cope with the phonological features of borrowed English words …

Shiwilu (Jebero), Pilar Valenzuela, Carlos Gussenhoven

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

Shiwilu (a.k.a. Jebero) is a critically endangered language from Peruvian Amazonia and one of the two members of the Kawapanan linguistic family. Most of its nearly 30 remaining fluent speakers live in and around the village of Jeberos (District of Jeberos, Province of Alto Amazonas, Loreto Region), at approximately 5° S, 75° W. The documentation of Shiwilu is scarce and no survey grammar is available. Until very recently, the only trained linguist who had worked on Shiwilu was John Bendor- Samuel, who carried out fieldwork in 1955–1956 and completed a doctoral thesis in 1958 (see Bendor-Samuel 1981 [1958]). An abridged …

Morphological Alternations At The Intonational Phrase Edge, Robert Henderson

English Faculty Research Publications

This article develops an analysis of a pair of morphological alternations in K'ichee' (Mayan) that are conditioned at the right edge of intonational phrase boundaries. I propose a syntax-prosody mapping algorithm that derives intonational phrase boundaries from the surface syntax, and then argue that each alternation can be understood in terms of output optimization. The important fact is that a prominence peak is always rightmost in the intonational phrase, and so the morphological alternations occur in order to ensure an optimal host for this prominence peak. Finally, I consider the wider implications of the analysis for the architecture of the …

Prosody-Based Query-By-Example Spoken Utterance Retrieval, Steven D. Werner, Nigel G. Ward

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Summer 2012

Current spoken dialogue retrieval systems are almost entirely lexically based, using automatic transcription by imperfect speech recognition technology. Once audio is reduced to text, little more than existing text search methods are used to retrieve results. However, spoken dialogue contains rich latent prosodic information about dialogue activities - such as agreeing, arguing, deciding, planning, storytelling, showing surprise - and this extra information can often be relevant to the searchers aims. Searching for similar speech acts rather then similar words enables similar contextual results, returning points where the speaker had the same sentiment during a topic. Previous research yielded 76 dimensions …

Investigating The Prevalence Of Use By Japanese Speakers Of An Acceptable Alternative Articulation Of The Phoneme /S/ To That Commonly Taught In Esl And Efl Classrooms, Greg Raver-Lampman

English Theses & Dissertations

The International Phonetic Association (IPA) as well as textbooks on phonology and teaching English as a second language (ESL) or foreign language (EFL) characterize the /s/ as an "alveolar fricative," meaning that the tongue approaches the alveolar ridge to produce the sound. Japanese phonology texts characterize the Japanese /s/ as alveolar as well. This tongue position has become integral to teaching the sound to English-speaking children who have speech impediments and for teaching the sibilants to speakers of other languages, including first-language speakers of Japanese who often struggle with the English /s/ despite the fact that the sound occurs in …

Comparing Deaf Native Signers And Deaf Early Signers With Respect To Phonological Perception, Ian Deandrea-Lazarus

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Common criteria for a native ASL signer include exposure to ASL from birth and having Deaf parents. This study questions the necessity of the second criterion by comparing two groups: 16 Deaf adults with Deaf parents and exposed to ASL from birth, and 16 Deaf adults with hearing parents and exposed to ASL before age two. All determined whether pairs of pseudosigns, sometimes differing in phonological details, matched. The two groups did not differ significantly on accuracy, but the first group responded faster than the second group on average. These findings suggest processing differences between the two groups, but otherwise …

Lenition, Naomi Gurevich

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

A Weighted Finite State Transducer Implementation Of Phoneme Rewrite Rules For English-To-Korean Pronunciation Conversion, Hahn Koo

Faculty Publications

Words change their phonetic as well as orthographic form when they are borrowed and used by speakers of another language. A formal model that properly captures this change has theoretical implications in phonology and practical applications in speech processing and machine transliteration. This paper describes a method for developing a finite- state model that predicts how English words and named entities are pronounced in Korean. The model predicts nativized pronunciation using weighted finite-state transducers implementing context-dependent phoneme rewrite rules derived from English-to-Korean pronunciation pairs and syllable phonotactics in Korean.