Schwa deletion in the conversational speech of English: The role of linguistic factors

The central role of English in cross-cultural communication worldwide has made it a unique site for understanding diversity in systems of discourse pragmatics. In contact situations, these differences can help to refine theoretical models, such as the question of how universal speech acts or properties of facework and politeness are. They can also have significant real-world implications in the form of cross-cultural (mis-) communication in globalized contexts. This chapter reviews a selection of examples of speech acts and politeness in World Englishes contexts that use theoretical models to account for variation, but in some instances also challenge elements of such models. The discussion also includes a consideration of variation in surface form as well as variation in discourse other than conversational speech, such as written genres.

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Vowel reduction in conversational speech in French: The role of lexical factors

Journal of Phonetics ◽

10.1016/j.wocn.2010.11.008 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 39 (3) ◽

pp. 271-278 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Christine Meunier ◽

Robert Espesser

Keyword(s):

Conversational Speech ◽

Vowel Reduction ◽

Lexical Factors

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Көркөм тексттеги диалогдун табияты

Vestnik Bishkek Humanities University ◽

10.35254/bhu.2019.47.30 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 51-54

Author(s):

А.М. Токтосунова

Keyword(s):

Literary Text ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

The World ◽

The Difference

Аннотация. Макалада көркөм тексттеги диалогдун табияты жана аткарган кызматы жөнүндө сөз болот. Мисалдагы диалогдор Ч.Айтматовдун, Т.Касымбековдун чыгармаларынан алынып, талдоо жүргүзүлдү. Диалогдук кептин көркөм чыгармадагы орду жана оозеки кептеги диалогдон айырмачылыгы жөнүндө маалымат берилди. Диалог каармандардын деңгэлин, социалдык, моралдык, психологиялык, интеллектуалдык өзгөчөлүктөрүн, коомдогу социалдык-психологиялык кырдаалды ар тараптуу туюндурушу тууралуу сөз козголот. Ошону менен бирге диалогдун автордук идеяга, анын тажрыйбасына, чеберчилигине, дүйнө таанымына, чыгармачылык деңгээлине байланыштуу макалада белгиленди. Диалог аркылуу образ түзүү, дүйнөнү образдуу чагылдырылып берилери мисалдар менен бекемделди. Б.Усубалиевдин, Т.С.Маразыковдун пикирлери жетекчиликке алынды. Түйүндүү сөздөр: диалог, коммуникация, коннотация, стиль, семантика, функционалдык стиль, эстетика, прагматика, образ, подтексттик информация. Аннотация. В этой статье рассматриваются природа диалога и его роли в художественном тексте. Анализ приведен на примерах произведений Ч. Айтматова и Т. Касымбекова. Дана информация места диалога в художественных произведениях и устной речи, и различия от устной речи. В статье речь идёт о роли диалога в социально-психологической, моральной, интеллектуальной характеристике героев в различных социально-психологических ситуациях. В статье отмечается, что диалог связан с идеями, опытом, мировоззрением, уровнем творческого мастерства автора. Приведены примеры того, что через диалог создаются образы, даётся образная картина мира в различных условиях и ситуациях в художественной литературе. Взяты за руководство мнения Б.Усубалиева и Т. Маразыкова. Ключевые слова: диалог, коммуникация, коннотация, стиль, семантика, функциональный стиль, эстетика, прагматика, образ, подтекстная информация. Annotation. In the article the speech is going about the nature of dialogue and the literary text. The dialogues on examples are from Ch. Aitmatov᾿s and T. Kasymbekov᾿s works and they were analysed. It has been informed about the difference the role of dialogue in creative works and conversational speech. The article deals with the role of dialogue in the socio-psychological, moral, intellectual characterization of the characters in various socio-psychological situations. The article notes that the dialogue is connected with the ideas, experience, worldview, level of the creative skill of the author. Examples are given that images are created through dialogue, an imaginative picture of the world is given in various conditions and situations in fiction.The article has been guided by the opinions of T. Marazykov and B. Usubaliev. Keyword: dialogue, communication, connotation, style, semantics, functional style, aesthetics, pragmatics, image, subtext information.

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The role of segmental and durational cues in the processing of reduced words

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/0023830917727774 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (3) ◽

pp. 358-383 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Marco van de Ven ◽

Mirjam Ernestus

Keyword(s):

Word Recognition ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

Word Comprehension ◽

Degree Of Reduction ◽

Initial Syllable ◽

Word Duration ◽

Gating Paradigm ◽

Target Words

In natural conversations, words are generally shorter and they often lack segments. It is unclear to what extent such durational and segmental reductions affect word recognition. The present study investigates to what extent reduction in the initial syllable hinders word comprehension, which types of segments listeners mostly rely on, and whether listeners use word duration as a cue in word recognition. We conducted three experiments in Dutch, in which we adapted the gating paradigm to study the comprehension of spontaneously uttered conversational speech by aligning the gates with the edges of consonant clusters or vowels. Participants heard the context and some segmental and/or durational information from reduced target words with unstressed initial syllables. The initial syllable varied in its degree of reduction, and in half of the stimuli the vowel was not clearly present. Participants gave too short answers if they were only provided with durational information from the target words, which shows that listeners are unaware of the reductions that can occur in spontaneous speech. More importantly, listeners required fewer segments to recognize target words if the vowel in the initial syllable was absent. This result strongly suggests that this vowel hardly plays a role in word comprehension, and that its presence may even delay this process. More important are the consonants and the stressed vowel.

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Speech Intensity Response to Altered Intensity Feedback in Individuals With Parkinson's Disease

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00278 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-15

Author(s):

Anita Senthinathan ◽

Scott Adams ◽

Allyson D. Page ◽

Mandar Jog

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Auditory Feedback ◽

Background Noise ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Auditory Information ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

Vowel Production ◽

Comfortable Loudness

Purpose Hypophonia (low speech intensity) is the most common speech symptom experienced by individuals with Parkinson's disease (IWPD). Previous research suggests that, in IWPD, there may be abnormal integration of sensory information for motor production of speech intensity. In the current study, intensity of auditory feedback was systematically manipulated (altered in both positive and negative directions) during sensorimotor conditions that are known to modulate speech intensity in everyday contexts in order to better understand the role of auditory feedback for speech intensity regulation. Method Twenty-six IWPD and 24 neurologically healthy controls were asked to complete the following tasks: converse with the experimenter, start vowel production, and read sentences at a comfortable loudness, while hearing their own speech intensity randomly altered. Altered intensity feedback conditions included 5-, 10-, and 15-dB reductions and increases in the feedback intensity. Speech tasks were completed in no noise and in background noise. Results IWPD displayed a reduced response to the altered intensity feedback compared to control participants. This reduced response was most apparent when participants were speaking in background noise. Specific task-based differences in responses were observed such that the reduced response by IWPD was most pronounced during the conversation task. Conclusions The current study suggests that IWPD have abnormal processing of auditory information for speech intensity regulation, and this disruption particularly impacts their ability to regulate speech intensity in the context of speech tasks with clear communicative goals (i.e., conversational speech) and speaking in background noise.

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Functions of three open-palm hand gestures

Multimodal Communication ◽

10.1515/mc-2012-0002 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gaëlle Ferré

Keyword(s):

European Parliament ◽

Hand Gesture ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

Methodological Framework ◽

Television Show ◽

Hand Gestures ◽

Political Speeches ◽

Discourse Units

AbstractThis study proposes an analysis of some pragmatic gestures with three types of open-palm gestures: beats and two instances of the hand flip, elsewhere called the ‘palm-up open-hand’ gesture (Müller, 2004; Cienki & Müller, 2008). Drawing upon three different corpora (political speeches made at the European Parliament, a television show in which the role of this parliament is presented and a corpus of conversational speech recorded in a lab), it proposes an analysis into prosodic, discursive and modal gestures. The paper - through the discussion of particular examples - will address the issues of the type of prosodic and discourse units which are marked by these gestures. Using the same methodological framework, the type of grammatical modality conveyed by open-palm gestures will also be considered.

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Normal Changes in the Speech of Older Adults: You've still got what it takes; it just takes a little longer!

Perspectives on Gerontology ◽

10.1044/gero14.2.47 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 47-56 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Celia R. Hooper ◽

Ann Cralidis

Keyword(s):

Motor Control ◽

Speech Production ◽

Older Adult ◽

Motor Behavior ◽

Structure And Function ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

Production Processes ◽

And Function ◽

Speech Motor

Abstract The authors reviewed the changes in speech production as a result of aging, including changes in structure and function as well as changes in motor control for speech. The following speech production processes in normal or typical aging were reviewed: breathing for speech, phonation, resonation, articulation, and fluency. Different theories of the role of motor control were reviewed, including more recent conclusions that cognition influences speech motor behavior throughout the lifespan. There are many speech changes in the communication of an older adult, but most are adaptive and do not affect good conversational speech.

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Phonetic reduction and paradigm uniformity effects in spontaneous speech

The Mental Lexicon ◽

10.1075/ml.20023.eng ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 165-198

Author(s):

U. Marie Engemann ◽

Ingo Plag

Keyword(s):

Acoustic Properties ◽

Conversational Speech ◽

Word Form ◽

Recent Experimental Study ◽

Co Activation ◽

Articulatory Gesture ◽

Phonetic Reduction ◽

Complex Words ◽

Paradigm Uniformity

Abstract Recent work on the acoustic properties of complex words has found that morphological information may influence the phonetic properties of words, e.g. acoustic duration. Paradigm uniformity has been proposed as one mechanism that may cause such effects. In a recent experimental study Seyfarth et al. (2017) found that the stems of English inflected words (e.g. frees) have a longer duration than the same string of segments in a homophonous mono-morphemic word (e.g. freeze), due to the co-activation of the longer articulatory gesture of the bare stem (e.g. free). However, not all effects predicted by paradigm uniformity were found in that study, and the role of frequency-related phonetic reduction remained inconclusive. The present paper tries to replicate the effect using conversational speech data from a different variety of English (i.e. New Zealand English), using the QuakeBox Corpus (Walsh et al. 2013). In the presence of word-form frequency as a predictor, stems of plurals were not found to be significantly longer than the corresponding strings of comparable non-complex words. The analysis revealed, however, a frequency-induced gradient paradigm uniformity effect: plural stems become shorter with increasing frequency of the bare stem.

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