scholarly journals The influence of Standard German on the vowels and diphthongs of West Central Bavarian

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Katrin Wolfswinkler ◽  
Jonathan Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Longitudinal Changes ◽  
West Central ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Opening And Closing

The spoken accent of children is strongly influenced by those of their peers but how rapidly do they adapt to sound changes in progress? We addressed this issue in an acoustic analysis of child and adult vowels of West Central Bavarian (WCB) that may be subject to an increasing influence by the Standard German (SG) variety. The study was a combination of longitudinal and apparent-time analyses: re-recordings from 20 WCB children in their first, second and third years of primary school at two schools in rural Bavaria were compared with those of 21 WCB adult speakers from the same area. The question was whether the children’s pronunciation diverged from the adults’ pronunciation and increasingly so in their second and third years. Participants produced stressed vowels in isolated mostly trochaic words in which WCB vs. SG differences were expected. Both adult/child and longitudinal changes in the direction of the standard were found in the children’s tendency towards a merger of two open vowels and a collapse of a long/short consonant contrast, neither of which exists in SG. There was some evidence that, unlike the adults, the children were beginning to develop tensity (= tenseness) and rounding contrasts, which occur in SG but not WCB. There were no observed changes to the pattern of opening and closing diphthongs, which differ markedly between the two varieties. The general conclusion is that WCB change is most likely to occur as a consequence of exaggerating phonetic variation that already happens to be in the direction of the standard.

scholarly journals Subversive compliance and embodiment in remedial interchanges

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 669-693
Author(s):  
Asta Cekaite
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Moral Emotion ◽  
Multiple Modalities ◽  
Temporal Duration ◽  
One Year

AbstractThis study examines normativity of affect and the affective embeddedness of normativity, instantiated as verbal and embodied stances taken by the participants in adult-child remedial interchanges. The data are based on one year of video fieldwork in a first-grade class at a Swedish primary school. An ethnographically informed analysis of talk and multimodal action is adopted. The findings show that the children’s affective and normative transgressions provided discursive spaces for adult moral instructions and socialization. However, the children’s compliant responses were resistant and subversive. They were designed as embodied double-voiced acts that indexed incongruent affective and moral stances. The findings further revealed several ways of configuring embodied double-voiced responses. The children juxtaposed multiple modalities and exploited the expectations of what constitutes appropriate temporal duration, timing, and shape of nonverbal responses. They (i) combined up-scaled verbal and embodied hyperbolic rhetoric when the teachers’ talk required but minimal responses, and (ii) configured antithetical affect displays, e.g., crying and smiling, or overlaid bodily displays of moral emotion (sadness, seriousness, and smiling) with aligning but exaggerated gestures and movements. Subversive, embodied double-voiced responses simultaneously acquiesced with and deflected the responsibility and effectively derailed a successful closure of remedial interchange.

Further Observations on Noise Levels in Infant Incubators

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred H. Bess ◽  
Barbara Finlayson Peek ◽  
Judy J. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Impulse Noise ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Frequency Region ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Storage Unit ◽  
High Frequency Region ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Opening And Closing

The purpose of this study was to conduct an acoustic analysis of incubator noise under two conditions: when the incubator was associated with different types of life-support equipment; and when impulse noise was created by striking the side of the incubator or by opening and closing the doors of the storage unit. It was found that the life-support equipment increased the overall noise levels of incubators by as much as 15 to 20 dB. Much of this increased energy was in the high frequency region. Impulse signals created by striking the side of the incubator ranged from 130 to 140 dB. A representative impulse for opening the incubator was 92.8 dB, whereas closing the door produced a peak amplitude of 114 dB.

scholarly journals Bilingual language exposure and the peer group: Acquiring phonetics and phonology in Gaelic Medium Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 360-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Nance
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Peer Group ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Conditional Inference ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Medium Education ◽  
The Impact

Aims and objectives:This paper aims to examine the acquisition of phonetics and phonology in the context of Scottish Gaelic immersion schooling. I explore the effect of differing home language backgrounds among primary school children on the production of laterals and stop consonants.Design/methodology/approach:Acoustic analysis was performed on Gaelic and English speech data collected from children in Gaelic Medium Education in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland.Data and analysis:Word list data were collected from 18 children aged 7–11 and analyzed using measurements of formants and duration of stop phases. Half of the sample had little or no exposure to Gaelic in the home, while the other half had differing degrees of family input. Statistical analysis was conducted using Conditional Inference Trees.Findings and conclusions:This study finds that any initial differences between children who enter Gaelic Medium Education as fluent speakers and those who do not are leveled out by late primary school, at least in terms of pronunciation. I suggest that leveled varieties of minority languages can develop in pre-adolescence in peer group settings such as minority language education.Originality:This study is the first to examine phonetic and phonological acquisition in Gaelic-English bilingual children. It is one of a small number of studies to examine bilingual phonological acquisition in immersion schooling. The study supports recent research exploring the development of peer group varieties among young minority language speakers.Significance and implications:This research aims to expand traditional models that consider the extent of exposure to two languages as key in predicting phonetic and phonological production. I suggest that the impact of the peer group and the context of language use are also significant factors. Results suggest potential development of education varieties of Gaelic. These findings have implications for future revitalization strategies for minority languages across the world.

Jaw setting and the California Vowel Shift in parodic performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Pratt ◽  
Annette D'Onofrio
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
Vowel Shift

AbstractThis article explores the intertwining semiotics of language and embodiment in performances of Californian personae. We analyze two actors’ performances of Californian characters in parodic skits, comparing them to the same actors’ performances of non-Californian characters. In portraying their Californian characters, the actors use particularized jaw settings, which we link toembodied stereotypesfrom earlier portrayals of the Valley Girl and Surfer Dude personae. Acoustic analysis demonstrates that both actors also produce features of the California Vowel Shift in their Californian performances, aligning their linguistic productions with sound changes documented in California. We argue that these embodied stereotypes and phonetic realizations not only co-occur in parodic styles, but are in fact semiotically and corporeally intertwined, one occasioning the other. Moreover, the performances participate in the broader process ofenregisterment, packaging these semiotic resources with other linguistic and extralinguistic features to recontextualize Californian personae in the present day. (Parody, performance, California, California Vowel Shift, embodiment, embodied stereotype, enregisterment)*

Prosodic marking of narrow focus across varieties of South African English

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Zerbian
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
South African ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Acoustic Parameters ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Production Study

This paper reports on an elicited production study which investigates prosodic marking of narrow focus in modified noun phrases in varieties of South African English. The acoustic analysis of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration in narrow focus is presented and discussed. The results suggest that these three acoustic parameters are manipulated differently in narrow focus in the varieties of English as a Second Language as compared to General South African English. The article compares the results to what is known about prosodic marking of information structure in other varieties of English as a Second Language and underlines the necessity of carefully controlled data in the investigation of phonological and phonetic variation in varieties of English.

Some patterns of unscripted speech in Hindi

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-126
Author(s):  
Manjari Ohala
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Female Adult ◽  
Perceptual Test ◽  
Sound Changes

This paper presents data from a small corpus of unscripted speech gathered from one male and one female adult native speaker of Hindi. An acoustic analysis of the data demonstrated changes such as lenition and assimilation. The cases of assimilation included stop plus stop sequences yielding geminates. The results of a perceptual test showed that such ‘pseudogeminates’ are generally perceived as true geminates. Parallels between these phenomena and historical sound changes in Indo-Aryan are also discussed.

Ethnic divergence in Montreal English

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Boberg
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Local Dominance ◽  
Immigrant Generations

AbstractThis article reports on a study of ethnic variation in the phonetics of Montreal English. The speech of 93 native speakers of Montreal English from three ethnic groups, British-Irish, Italian and Jewish, was recorded and subjected to acoustic analysis. Several statistically significant differences among the ethnic groups were identified. The present paper undertakes an apparent-time analysis of these differences, to see whether they are getting smaller over time, as might be expected under the assumption that post-immigrant generations gradually assimilate to the linguistic and cultural patterns of their adopted homelands. While Jewish Montrealers show some signs of convergence with the British-origin standard, Italians — especially young Italian men—appear to be diverging from that model. It is suggested that the unusual persistence and even intensification of ethno-phonetic variation in English-speaking Montreal reflects both the residential and social self-segregation of its ethnic communities and the local dominance of French.

scholarly journals Correlates of longitudinal changes in the waist-to-height ratio of primary school children: Implications for prevention

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothea Kesztyüs ◽  
Meike Traub ◽  
Romy Lauer ◽  
Tibor Kesztyüs ◽  
Jürgen Michael Steinacker
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
School Children ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Height Ratio ◽  
Longitudinal Changes ◽  
Waist To Height Ratio

Acoustic analysis of the rhotic contrast in Chicagoland Spanish

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
Individual Variation ◽  
Speech Signal ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Phonological Contrasts ◽  
First And Second Generation

This paper reports on an acoustic analysis of the phonemic tap-trill contrast (/ɾ/-/r/) for first and second generation speakers of Mexican Spanish who live in the Chicagoland area. First, it is shown that speakers most commonly produce phonemic trills with a single apical occlusion, although there is much individual variation. Second, nearly all speakers realize the tap-trill contrast by means of segmental duration, and this is especially true for speakers who favor zero or one closures in the phonemic trill. These data suggest that heritage speakers make use of the limits of phonetic variation to the extent that phonological contrasts are intact in their grammar. The findings have implications for disentangling the sources of individual variation in heritage pronunciation. Specifically, we propose that between-speaker instabilities in rhotic production result more directly from an inherently variable speech signal than from the language contact situation.

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