Phonetic Imitation by Young Children and Its Developmental Changes

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 2065-2075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuniko Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Third Graders ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Before And After

Purpose In the current study, the author investigated the developmental course of phonetic imitation in childhood, and further evaluated existing accounts of phonetic imitation. Method Sixteen preschoolers, 15 third graders, and 18 college students participated in the current study. An experiment with a modified imitation paradigm with a picture-naming task was conducted, in which participants' voice-onset time (VOT) was compared before and after they were exposed to target speech with artificially increased VOT. Results Extended VOT in the target speech was imitated by preschoolers and 3rd graders as well as adults, confirming previous findings in phonetic imitation. Furthermore, an age effect of phonetic imitation was observed; namely, children showed greater imitation than adults, whereas the degree of imitation was comparable between preschoolers and 3rd graders. No significant effect of gender or word specificity was observed. Conclusions Young children imitated fine phonetic details of the target speech, and greater degree of phonetic imitation was observed in children compared to adults. These findings suggest that the degree of phonetic imitation negatively correlates with phonological development.

‘A gup of dea, please’

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eltje Beckmann
Keyword(s):  
Picture Naming ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
The Other ◽  
Frequent Users ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence

Although crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in voice onset time (VOT) production is a widely studied phenomenon (e.g. Flege, 1987), few studies look at more than two languages. This study examines the production of word-initial stops in Dutch, English and German by two groups of German L3 learners of Dutch: frequent and less frequent L3 users. The aim was to uncover evidence for CLI between Dutch and English/German by employing a picture-naming task. An acoustic analysis revealed that the frequent users produced significantly shorter voiceless stops and more prevoicing in English than the other groups did. However, all participants produced native VOTs in German, indicating that the L1 is not affected.

scholarly journals Perception–Production Links in Children's Speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 853-867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna H. Lowenstein ◽  
Susan Nittrouer
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Spectral Measures ◽  
Signal Degradation ◽  
Children With Hearing Loss ◽  
Production Capacities

Purpose Child phonologists have long been interested in how tightly speech input constrains the speech production capacities of young children, and the question acquires clinical significance when children with hearing loss are considered. Children with sensorineural hearing loss often show differences in the spectral and temporal structures of their speech production, compared to children with normal hearing. The current study was designed to investigate the extent to which this problem can be explained by signal degradation. Method Ten 5-year-olds with normal hearing were recorded imitating 120 three-syllable nonwords presented in unprocessed form and as noise-vocoded signals. Target segments consisted of fricatives, stops, and vowels. Several measures were made: 2 duration measures (voice onset time and fricative length) and 4 spectral measures involving 2 segments (1st and 3rd moments of fricatives and 1st and 2nd formant frequencies for the point vowels). Results All spectral measures were affected by signal degradation, with vowel production showing the largest effects. Although a change in voice onset time was observed with vocoded signals for /d/, voicing category was not affected. Fricative duration remained constant. Conclusions Results support the hypothesis that quality of the input signal constrains the speech production capacities of young children. Consequently, it can be concluded that the production problems of children with hearing loss—including those with cochlear implants—can be explained to some extent by the degradation in the signal they hear. However, experience with both speech perception and production likely plays a role as well.

Development of L2 Spanish VOT before and after a brief pronunciation training session

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-434
Author(s):  
Katharina S. Schuhmann ◽  
Marie K. Huffman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Training Session ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Before And After ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
L2 Spanish ◽  
Future Work

Abstract We present a study of the development of L2 stop VOT (voice onset time) in lower-level English-speaking learners of Spanish over the course of a college semester. Participants were recorded six times in two-week intervals. Halfway through the semester, students received a brief pronunciation training session with practice and feedback. Overall, the learners did not lower their L2 VOTs in the first half of the study, before pronunciation training. Following training, however, they lowered their mean VOTs for Spanish voiceless stops significantly. A similar effect was not found for their mean VOTs of Spanish voiced stops, in line with prior work suggesting that prevoicing may be harder to acquire. Yet careful examination suggests that learners are increasing the frequency with which they use prevoicing in Spanish, suggesting this metric might inform future work on L2 Spanish pronunciation development. This work has implications for teaching and research in second language pronunciation.

scholarly journals Sympathetic arousal of young children who stutter during a stressful picture naming task

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 24-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hatun Zengin-Bolatkale ◽  
Edward G. Conture ◽  
Tedra A. Walden
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Sympathetic Arousal

scholarly journals Evidence of phonological transfer in bilingual preschoolers who speak Arabic and French

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110342
Author(s):  
Rabia Sabah Meziane ◽  
Andrea AN MacLeod
Keyword(s):  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Positive Interactions ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Repeated Measures Analysis ◽  
Two Systems

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to document evidence of phonological transfer in bilingual preschoolers. Specifically, we focus on the phonological development of bilingual children acquiring French and Arabic. Method: Nine children who spoke Arabic and French, aged three years old, participated in a picture-naming task in both languages. Three types of measurement were used to examine the interaction between the two systems: consonants accuracy; inventory of acquired consonants; and types of errors. Data and analysis: The accuracy of shared and unshared consonants between Arabic and French were compared with a repeated measures analysis of variance, and error patterns were analyzed. Conclusions: Two main results suggest that these bilingual children have two phonological systems that interacted. First, the children had an inventory of acquired consonants that differed according to language. Second, they produced shared consonants more accurately than unshared consonants, indicating positive interactions and low accuracy for unshared consonants, indicating negative interactions. Originality: This study contributes much-needed research relating to the development of bilingual children, particularly children who are acquiring Arabic and French. Implications: These findings enrich the understanding of bilingual phonological development and contribute to understanding how two phonological systems interact. This study also has clinical implications for evaluation and intervention with bilingual children.

Voice onset time in bilingual German-Spanish children

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARGARET M. KEHOE ◽  
CONXITA LLEÓ ◽  
MARTIN RAKOW
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
German Children ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Phonetic Realization ◽  
Language Influence

This study examines the acquisition of the voicing contrast in German-Spanish bilingual children, on the basis of the acoustic measurement of Voice Onset Time (VOT). VOT in four bilingual children (aged 2;0–3;0) was measured and compared to VOT in three monolingual German children (aged 1;9–2;6), and to previous literature findings in Spanish. All measurements were based on word-initial stops extracted from naturalistic speech recordings. Results revealed that the bilingual children displayed three different patterns of VOT development: 1. Delay in the phonetic realization of voicing: two bilingual children did not acquire long lag stops in German during the testing period; 2. Transfer of voicing features: one child produced German voiced stops with lead voicing and Spanish voiceless stops with long lag voicing; and 3. No cross-language influence in the phonetic realization of voicing. The relevance of the findings for cross-linguistic interaction in bilingual phonetic/phonological development is discussed.

The acquisition of the voicing contrast in Spanish: a phonetic and phonological study of word-initial stop consonants

1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlys A. Macken ◽  
David Barton
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Instrumental Analysis ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Spanish Word ◽  
Voiceless Stop

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on the acquisition of the voicing contrast in Mexican–Spanish word-initial stops. In Study 1, three monolingual children were recorded every two weeks for seven months, beginning when the children were about 1; 7. In Study 2, four monolingual children about 3; 10 were recorded once or twice. Two analyses were done. Instrumental analysis of the stop productions revealed that not even by age 3; 10 were the children consistently distinguishing between voiced–voiceless stop cognate pairs on the basis of adult-like voice-onset time characteristics. The spirantization analysis, however, more clearly revealed the children's phonological knowledge. Discussion focuses on the implications of the data for phonological development in general and for the phonological description of voicing in Spanish.

scholarly journals The relationship between inhibitory control and speech production in young multilinguals

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-79
Author(s):  
Iga Krzysik
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
L2 Production ◽  
Global Accuracy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Repetition Task

AbstractSpeech production in multilinguals involves constant inhibition of the languages currently not in use. In relation to phonological development, higher inhibitory skills may lead to the improved suppression of interference from the remaining languages in one’s repertoire and more accurate production of target features. The participants were 20 sequential multilingual learners (13-year-olds with L1 Polish, L2 English, L3 German), acquiring their L2 and L3 by formal instruction in a primary school. Inhibition was measured in a modified flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen 1974; Poarch & Bialystok 2015). Multilingual production of voice onset time (VOT) and rhotic consonants was tested in a delayed repetition task (e.g. Kopečková et al. 2016; Krzysik 2019) in their L2 and L3. The results revealed that higher inhibitory control was related to increased global accuracy in the L2 and L3 production. Moreover, higher inhibitory control was also linked to higher accuracy in the overall L2 production, but there was no significant relationship with the L3 accuracy. These findings suggest that inhibition may play a role in phonological speech production, however, it may depend on one’s level of proficiency.

Lexicale Innovaties

1995 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
Marja van Helden-Lankhaar
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Target Concept ◽  
Considerable Evidence ◽  
Target Picture ◽  
Compound Nouns ◽  
Study Results

There is considerable evidence that young children often use novel compounds to label salient instances in familiar categories, spontaneously as well as in experimental settings. Although examples appear in the literature of innovative labels for categories which are unfamiliar or completely new to children, little is known about the role of compounding in this case. A picture naming task was designed to elicit names for concepts assumed to be unknown to young children and not easily recognisable as belonging to a particular category. Each target picture was presented together with pictures of two related and well known concepts. 180 Dutch speaking children, aged 3;0-8;l, participated in the study. Results show that from age 3 on, children are prepared to label novel concepts, appropriateness increasing with age. About two thirds of the appropriate labels consist of novel compound nouns. Influence of type of target concept on appropriateness and compounding is discussed.

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