Phonetics and Phonology Commons^™

A Phonological Analysis Of The Word-Borrowing Process In VolapüK, Yutong Zhang

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

This paper analyzes the phonological process present in the word-borrowing process in Volapük nulik, the later version of Volapük – one of the world’s first constructed international auxiliary languages that achieved more than a million speakers – through an analogy with the loanword adaptation process taking place in a natural language. It examines the emergent phonological patterns within this process, despite the inherited arbitrariness of any constructed languages, and compares them with the prescriptive rules regulating the word-borrowing process featured in its grammar. The paper is divided into three parts: Part I generalizes the syllable shape in Volapük from …

The Effect Of Dialect On Lexical Recall, Chandler Douglas

Honors Theses

Investigating the performance of listeners as they attempt to recall words in both a familiar and unfamiliar dialect could likely lend some insight to the cognitive processes concerning speech perception. Specifically, the current study investigates whether speech spoken in an unfamiliar accent in a listener’s language influences comprehension and, therefore, memory recall of content. To test this, a group of speakers of General American English speakers and a group of speakers of Southern American English listened to two sets of words: one in General American and one in Southern American English. Participants were then asked to write down or type …

Singing And Pronunciation: A Review Of The Literature, Kassidy Joyner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Observed differences exist in the pronunciation abilities of individual language learners, especially adult learners. Musical ability and experience are possible factors that have been attributed to language pronunciation abilities. Although there has been a large amount of research concerning the effects of general musical ability and training on language abilities, very few studies have investigated the musical sub-category of singing. Research on the use of songs in the language classroom has largely tested the effects of song on vocabulary acquisition, while very few studies have explored the effects of song on pronunciation. Given that singing and pronunciation both use similar …

Methods And Effects Of Shadowing Using Online Authentic Videos On L2 Acquisition Of Mandarin Chinese Tones, Ai-Ling Lu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mandarin Chinese tones are notoriously difficult for second language (L2) learners. Previous research focuses on tone training methods that can help learners produce monosyllabic lexical tones, and studies about the production of multisyllabic lexical tones at the sentence level in spontaneous speech are limited. This study applies shadowing—a method where the learners repeat what they heard with as little delay as possible—to tone training and compares the effects of using authentic videos and textbook audios as shadowing materials for beginner L2 Mandarin learners’ tone improvement at the sentence level. Fourteen students in elementary Chinese classes at an American university participated …

An Interactive Visual Database For American Sign Language Reveals How Signs Are Organized In The Mind, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Ariel Goldberg, Karen Emmory, Naomi Caselli

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

"We are four researchers who study psycholinguistics, linguistics, neuroscience and deaf education. Our team of deaf and hearing scientists worked with a group of software engineers to create the ASL-LEX database that anyone can use for free. We cataloged information on nearly 3,000 signs and built a visual, searchable and interactive database that allows scientists and linguists to work with ASL in entirely new ways."

Experienced And Inexperienced Listeners' Perception Of Childrens' /L/ Productions And Their Acoustic Correlates, Emily A. Coniglio

LSU Master's Theses

The phoneme /l/ is one of the highly misarticulated sounds for young children. Referrals for articulation are often based on a listener’s perception of the problem. The aim of the current study was to examine three listener groups’ perception of word-initial /l/ produced by young children to understand if level of experience with child speech impacts listeners’ perception on /l/. The three groups were separated based on their years of experience: speech-language pathologists with at least 10 years of experience (SLP group), graduate students in speech-language pathology (GS group), and naive listeners with no clinical phonetics experience (NL group). Specifically, …

An Automated Tool For Comparing Phonetic Transcriptions, Dallin J. Bailey, Marisha Speights Atkins, Ishaan Mishra, Sicheng Li, Yaoxuan Luan, Cheryl Seals

Faculty Publications

Many computerized tools for comparing phonetic transcriptions have been proposed and shared in the past; however, previous tools are relatively difficult to access and incorporate into clinical and research practice, or require users to learn additional phonetic symbol systems. The purpose of this project was to develop and test a readily available web-based application for quantitatively comparing phonetic transcriptions that are input using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. A web-based computer application was developed to allow for IPA phonetic transcription comparison. A point-and-click keyboard was developed to provide support for character input of the full IPA, as well as most …

Spe-29 - Voice & Articulation (Intro Assignment), Laura Spinu

Open Educational Resources

This assignment is asking students to collaboratively create a database of "good" and "bad" voices for subsequent analysis.

Spe-29 - Voice & Articulation (Advanced Assignment), Laura Spinu

Open Educational Resources

This two-part assignment introduces students to spectrogram reading by asking them (1) to explore a set of spectrograms representing the days of the week, and then (2) record their own spectrogram and add a picture of it to a common "Mystery Spectrograms" folder for use in a subsequent assignment (and also in classroom activities).

NOTE: by the time this assignment is introduced, the students have already learned how to record themselves and save sound files using the Praat software for acoustic analysis. If they are not familiar with the procedure, this tutorial will help:

Making a recording in PRAAT

The Asl-Lex 2.0 Project: A Database Of Lexical And Phonological Properties For 2,723 Signs In American Sign Language, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Ariel M. Cohen-Goldberg, Karen Emmory

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency (“guessability”) ratings (from non-signers), sign and videoclip durations, lexical class, and more. We document the steps used to create ASL-LEX 2.0 and describe the distributional characteristics for sign properties across the lexicon and examine the relationships among lexical and phonological properties of signs. Correlation …

Prosody And Intonation In Formosan Languages, Benjamin K. Macaulay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Formosan languages are the languages of the Aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. These languages are part of the Austronesian language family, and represent all but one primary branch of this family of 1,200+ languages. The Formosan languages are endangered, some critically so. While these languages have seen attention in the literature for their syntactic and phonological systems, little work has been done on their prosodic structure or intonation.

This dissertation analyzes the prosodic structure and intonational phonology of Mantauran Rukai, Budai Rukai, Tsou, Kanakanavu, Hla’alua, Sandimen Paiwan, Piuma Paiwan, Kavalan, Amis, Bunun, Tgdaya Seediq, Truku Seediq, and Pazeh, based on …

Language Contact And Covert Prominence In The Sḥerēt-Jibbāli Language Of Oman, Jarred Brewster

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This thesis reports on a phonetic production study, the results of which support the existence of a complex word-prosodic system for the Sḥerēt-Jibbāli language of Dhofar, Oman. In the language, stress seems to co-occur in some lexical items with a high tone. In the discussion, a mechanism for the emergence of this system is proposed as the reflex of a typological feature held in common with the related language, Soqotri, and as justification for an Eastern Modern South Arabian subgroup consisting of Sḥerēt-Jibbāli and Soqotri.

The Influence Of Socioindexical Information On The Speech Perception-Production Link: Evidence From A Shadowing Task, Kyler B. Laycock

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

The body of work on speech perception demonstrates the ability of listeners to utilize both visual and acoustic information in their processing of a given speech signal. More recent studies have established that listeners are sensitive to cues in both these modalities which inform their perception of a speaker's identity in parallel with the linguistic message, but the relationship between social information in perception and production together is unclear. This study reports the results of an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that expectations about a speakers identity is able to influence a listener's perception and production of speech in …

An Acoustic Analysis Of The Monophthongs Of Penang Malay, Muhamad Farid Abdul Latiff

Student Works (2020-2029)

The study aims to examine acoustically the production of monophthongs of Penang Malay by five (5) selected female participants who are of the Jawi Peranakan community. Two (2) female participants of Standard Malay were also selected as a comparator to Penang Malay. The first research question focuses on the acoustic features of Penang Malay and Standard Malay based on their formant frequencies of F1 and F2, while the second research question examines the similarities and differences between Penang Malay and Standard Malay based on their acoustic properties. The target vowels are: [a], [i], [u], [ɛ], [ɔ], [ə], [e], and [o]. …

The Sounds Of Sikles Gurung: A Phonetic And Phonological Description Of A Tibeto-Burman Language Of Nepal, Danielle Ronkos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation describes the sound system of the Sikles variety of Gurung, or Tamu Kyui, a Tibeto-Burman minority language of Nepal. Drawing on data collected with the help of Sikles Gurung speakers living in Nepal and New York between 2014 and 2018, it presents evidence that the phonetics and phonology of this variety differ from descriptions of other varieties. Major findings include contrastive vowel duration, a 2-category register system rather than the 4-tone system reported for other varieties, and allophonic secondary consonant articulations assigned by the backness of adjacent vowels and glides. The secondary articulation system is linked to the …

Cot In The Act: Ethnicity And Age Affects Phonemic Perception Of The Low-Back Merger In New York City English, Omar Ortiz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

ABSTRACT

This paper is an experimental study on how perceptions about a speaker’s age and ethnicity may influence whether listeners perceive the THOUGHT / LOT distinction. The macro-categories of age and ethnicity have been found to correlate with the lowering of raised THOUGHT (Wong 2012, Becker 2010) and the favoring of the merged vowels in perception (Haddican et al. 2016). This thesis examines whether images of faces associated with different age and ethnicity categories condition perception of auditory stimuli as belonging to either the LOT or THOUGHT class. This thesis builds on previous results suggesting that non-linguistic information influences speech …

Adding Production To High Variability Phonetic Training, Caleb Crosby

Honors Theses

The effectiveness of adding a production component to a High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) regimen to improve native Japanese speaker’s pronunciation of English [b], [v], [f], and [h] was investigated. L1 Japanese-speaking English learners were recruited as participants, and a pretest-posttest procedure was used to evaluate improvement at production of the target consonants. For the pretest and posttest, recordings were taken of participants pronouncing twelve tokens, and the recordings were rated for intelligibility by a phonetically trained native English-speaking rater. Participants were divided into two groups. Group A received only HVPT training, and group B received a regimen of half …

Kesan Kemahiran Pemprosesan Fonologi Terhadap Pembacaan Awal Kanak-Kanak Tri Bahasa, Fung Lan Loo

Student Works (2020-2029)

Kemahiran pemprosesan fonologi merupakan kemahiran yang diperlukan dalam pemprosesan bahasa lisan dan bertulis dengan menggunakan maklumat fonologi. Kepentingan kemahiran pemprosesan fonologi dalam pembacaan awal bukan terhad kepada bahasa berabjad seperti Bahasa Inggeris, tetapi juga menyumbang kepada bahasa bukan berabjad seperti Bahasa Cina. Kajian ini bertujuan mengkaji tentang kesan kemahiran pemprosesan terhadap pembacaan awal kanak-kanak dalam tiga bahasa iaitu Bahasa Cina (L1), Bahasa Inggeris (L2) dan Bahasa Melayu (L3). Kajian ini melibatkan seramai 150 orang kanak-kanak Cina berumur enam hingga tujuh tahun dari enam buah Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina di Selangor, Malaysia. Sampel diuji dengan set ujian yang menilai keupayaan …

The Science Of Singing, Reed Blaylock

Pedagogical Approaches to Laboratory Phonology

No abstract provided.

Research-Led Teaching Of State-Of-The-Art Laboratory Phonology: Intonation Atlases, Ingo Feldhausen

Pedagogical Approaches to Laboratory Phonology

At the end of this talk you…

• have an idea of how undergraduate students of linguistics experience learning through research and inquiry into laboratory phonology in my university classes

• got to know a definition of "research-led teaching" • know the goals and method(s) behind the Interactive Atlas of (Spanish) Intonation, on which I based my research-led teaching projects

• know the different steps of how I implemented my research-led teaching project in advanced linguistics classes

• know how the scientific results of these projects were made accessible to the international linguistic community and how they are taken up …

From Study Design To Conference Presentation In One Semester: Introducing Students To The Research Process In Laboratory Phonology, Caroline Smith

Pedagogical Approaches to Laboratory Phonology

The purpose of this presentation is todiscuss my experience of taking a class through the entireprocess of a laboratory phonology research study in a single semester, in fact, in about threemonths.

Vowel Category And Meanings Of Size In Tolkien's Early Lexicons, Lucas Annear

Journal of Tolkien Research

The grounds for studying phonetic symbolism (phonosemantics, etc.) in Tolkien's invented languages were well established by Tolkien through comments made in letters, drafts of his works, and essays. Previous researchers (e.g., Smith, 2006; 2007; Gymnich, 2005) have discussed the aesthetic effects of Tolkien's elvish languages on his audience, and have also observed connections between a range of meanings and sounds in Tolkien's languages (e.g., Fimi, 2008; Rausch, 2013). However, no researchers have explored this area of study with quantitative methods. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between vowel quality and meanings of size in the Gnomish …

Musical Ability And Accent Imitation, Maria Murljacic

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigates the intersection of musical ability and accent imitation, more specifically defining what factors cause a relationship between the two. The study was run on 50 participants, who each completed an accent imitation ability assessment, a musical ability assessment, and an articulation ability assessment. The scores for the accent imitation portion were rated by anonymous online raters. Each participant filled out a questionnaire on prior musical experience and were either classified as a musician or non-musician. The analysis found that those in the musician group performed better on the musical ability, articulation, and accent ability assessment than non-musicians. …

An Instrumental Study Of Front Oral Monophthongs In Kensiu, Azizan Adilah

Student Works (2020-2029)

This paper acoustically examines the front oral vowels of Kensiu, a highly endangered Austroasiatic language spoken in Peninsular Malaysia. Although there have been initial studies on the phonology of Kensiu, (Bishop, 1996; Burenhult, 2001), these are mainly on the variety spoken in Thailand. This far, there is a lack of studies especially those based on the acoustic analysis. The changes in the sounds of Kensiu are likely to have taken place with increasing contact with the local Malay community in Kedah where the only Kensiu village is located. This paper aims to fill the gap by examining the acoustic properties …

Khmer Phonetics & Phonology: Theoretical Implications For Esl Instruction, Alex Donley

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis develops an approach to English teaching for Khmer-speaking students that centers on Khmer phonetics and phonology. Cambodia has a strong demand for English instruction, but consistently underperforms next to other nations in terms of proficiency. A significant reason for Cambodia’s skill gap is the lack of research into linguistic hurdles Khmer speakers face when learning English. This paper aims to bridge Khmer and English with an understanding of the speech systems that both languages use before turning to the unique challenges Khmer speakers must overcome based on the tenets of L1 Transfer Theory. It closes by outlining strategies …

Speech Exemplar And Evaluation Database (Seed) For Clinical Training In Articulatory Phonetics And Speech Science, Marisha Speights Atkins, Dallin J. Bailey, Suzanne E. Boyce

Faculty Publications

One challenge faced by teachers of phonetics, speech science, and clinical speech disorders courses is providing meaningful instruction that closes the theory to practice gap. One barrier to providing this type of deep learning experience is the lack of publicly available examples of speech recordings that illustrate comparisons between typical and disordered speech production across a broad range of disorder populations. Data of this type exist, but are typically collected for specific research projects under narrowly written IRB protocols that do not allow for release of even de-identified speech recordings to other investigators or teachers. As a partial corrective to …

“This Is A Stunning, Stunning Night”: News Media Constructions Of Emotional Reality, Karrina Janelle Oravetz

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The news media is one of the main influences of people’s perception, especially during elections. It can have an influence on a voter’s perception during and after the results of an election. One of the issues that arises is that news reports are biased, which affects viewers’ perceptions and interpretations of the information reported. This paper presents an analysis of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in the genre of news media and further shows that prosodic features is another layer of analysis in CDA. I am looking specifically at how news broadcasts construct information after the 2016 election results. News media …

Computational Approaches To The Syntax–Prosody Interface: Using Prosody To Improve Parsing, Hussein M. Ghaly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prosody has strong ties with syntax, since prosody can be used to resolve some syntactic ambiguities. Syntactic ambiguities have been shown to negatively impact automatic syntactic parsing, hence there is reason to believe that prosodic information can help improve parsing. This dissertation considers a number of approaches that aim to computationally examine the relationship between prosody and syntax of natural languages, while also addressing the role of syntactic phrase length, with the ultimate goal of using prosody to improve parsing.

Chapter 2 examines the effect of syntactic phrase length on prosody in double center embedded sentences in French. Data collected …

The Synchronic And Diachronic Phonology Of Nauruan: Towards A Definitive Classification Of An Understudied Micronesian Language, Kevin Hughes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nauruan is a Micronesian language spoken in the Republic of Nauru, a small island nation in the central Pacific. Lack of data and difficulty in analysis has hindered progress in better understanding Nauruan for decades, particularly regarding its phonology and its classification within the Micronesian family. Because of these challenges, earlier researchers have presented their work on Nauruan as highly tentative. This dissertation establishes more confident analyses of Nauruan phonology, sound change and classification, which have been made possible through original fieldwork.

Approximately one hundred hours of digital recordings have been collected as part of this research, including wordlists, phrases, …

Testing The Perceptual Magnet Effect In Monolinguals And Bilinguals, Michael C. Stern

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research has demonstrated an apparent warping of the perceptual space whereby the best exemplars or ‘prototypes’ of speech sound categories minimize the perceptual distance between themselves and neighboring stimuli in the same category. This phenomenon has been termed the ‘perceptual magnet effect’ (PME). The present study extends work on the PME to a speech sound category previously unstudied in this paradigm (American English /æ/), and to bilingual speech sound representation and perception. American English monolinguals and Turkish-English bilinguals completed identification tasks, category goodness rating tasks, and same-different discrimination tasks with synthesized vowel sounds from the American English /æ/ category—not …