scholarly journals ACOUSTIC EFFECTS OF DURATIONAL CUES IN THE PERCEPTION OF NAJDI ARABIC VOWEL CONTINUA

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Al Mahmoud
Keyword(s):  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Perceptual Judgments ◽  
Relative Proximity ◽  
Najdi Arabic ◽  
Normal Duration ◽  
Perceptual Ability

This paper explores how the manipulation of vowel duration as a perceptual cue influences listeners’ perceptual ability. Four native speakers of Najdi Arabic, a well-known variety of Arabic in the Arabian Peninsula, were tested on the perception of /a/ vs. /ɛ/ vowels. Listeners’ identification and discrimination rates along each vowel continuum showed a clear effect of duration on the perception of /a/-/ɛ/ contrast. In each vowel continuum, listeners were more inclined to classify stimuli as belonging to one vowel or the other based on relative proximity to the steady-state vowel duration. Perceptibility naturally improved as duration approximated the normal duration of either vowel. Listeners’ perceptual judgments in the identification and discrimination of the vowels were swayed by their aural sensitivity to perceptual shifts (/a/-/ɛ/ at 185-195ms; /ɛ/-/a/ at 195-205ms). Moreover, findings of the identification task followed predictably from the discrimination task; this could be taken as evidence for the existence of categorical perception. Results aggregately indicate that perception of the two Najdi Arabic vowels proceeded as a function of duration. 

scholarly journals On the Pedagogical Relevance of Strategic Competence

1986 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahereh Paribakht
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Esl Students ◽  
Negotiation Of Meaning ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Strategic Competence ◽  
Adult Esl ◽  
Communication Situations ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Linguistic Material

This paper is a report on a study concerned with the identification of target language linguistic material essential for the learners' use of communication strategies (CS) in survival situations. Subjects were 40 adult ESL students and 20 native speakers of English. A concept-identification task was used to elicit these speakers' CS. Given that the taxonomy of CS developed in the study was based on the type of knowledge utilized by the speakers, it was possible to identify the semantic, as well as the typical syntactic patterns, required for their implementation. These linguistic manifestations of CS can serve as a basis for developing L2 teaching materials with the aim of preparing L2 learners to function successfully in problematic communication situations. An appropriate sequence for the presentation of such material is proposed based on the frequency of their application in the negotiation of meaning by the speakers in this study.

scholarly journals Perceptie van toon en vocaalduur in het dialect van Weert

1970 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Jo Verhoeven
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Grammatical Categories

This study investigates the perceptual relevance of vowel duration and pitchmovement alignment to lexical tone identification in the Dutch-Limburgdialect of Weert. For this purpose a perception experiment was carried out inwhich listeners identified a series of experimental stimuli differing in vowelduration and tonal alignment as instances of the grammatical categories 'singular'or 'plural'. The results of this experiment suggest that native speakers ofthe Weert dialect are most sensitive to vowel duration differences. Only whenvowel duration is ambiguous, tonal alignment enables them to disambiguatethe stimuli. This supports the tonal re-interpretion hypothesis in terms ofvowel duration.

Implicit acquisition of tone-suffix connections in L2 learners of Swedish

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Schremm ◽  
Pelle Söderström ◽  
Merle Horne ◽  
Mikael Roll
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Present Response ◽  
Verb Tense

Swedish native speakers (NSs) unconsciously use tones realized on word stems to predict upcoming suffixes during speech comprehension. The present response time study investigated whether relatively proficient second language (L2) learners of Swedish have acquired the underlying association between tones and suffixes without explicit instruction, internalizing a feature that is specific to their L2. Learners listened to sentences in which the tone on the verb stem either validly or invalidly cued the following present or past tense inflection. Invalidly cued suffixes led to increased decision latencies in a verb tense identification task, suggesting that learners pre-activated suffixes associated with stem tones in a manner similar to NSs. Thus, L2 learners seemed to have acquired the tone-suffix connections through implicit mechanisms. Correctly cued suffixes were associated with a smaller processing advantage in the L2 group relative to NSs performing the same task; nevertheless, results suggest a tendency for increasingly native-like tone processing with cumulative language experience. The way suffix type affected response times also indicates exposure-related effects.

scholarly journals Phonetic Imitation of Vowel Duration in L2 Speech

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Zając
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
British English ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L2 Pronunciation

This paper reports the results of a pilot study concerned with phonetic imitation in the speech of Polish learners of English. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether native speakers of Polish imitate the length of English vowels and to determine whether the extent of phonetic imitation may be influenced by the model talker being a native or a non-native speaker of English. The participants were asked to perform an auditory naming task in which they indentified objects and actions presented on a set of photos twice, with and without the imitation task. The imitation task was further sub-divided depending on the model talker being a native or non-native speaker of English (a native Southern British English speaker and a native Polish speaker fluent in English). As the aim was to investigate the variability in durational characteristics of English vowels, the series of front vowels /æ e ɪ iː/ were analysed in the shortening and lengthening b_t vs. b_d contexts. The results of the study show that the participants imitated the length of the investigated vowels as a result of exposure to the two model talkers. The data suggest that the degree of imitation was mediated both by linguistic and social factors and that the direction of convergence might have been affected by the participants’ attitude toward L2 pronunciation.

scholarly journals Kõnetaju kategoriaalsus ehk hüpotees sellest, kuidas me keelelisi üksusi tajume

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-143
Author(s):  
Nele Salveste
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Experimental Method ◽  
Speech Signal ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Speech Communication ◽  
Perceptual Ability ◽  
Estonian Language ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
Normal Speech

Erinevate häälikute laad meie igapäevases kõnes varieerub tugevalt, kuid häälduse varieeruvus ei ole enamasti kõneeristusele takistuseks. See annab alust oletada, et kõnetaju on välja arendanud süsteemi, millega tuvastada foneeme väga suure varieeruvusega kõnesignaalist. See süsteem tegeleb kõne varieeruvusega nii tõhusalt ja kiiresti, et me ei ole sellest enamasti teadlikud. Seda süsteemi võiks nimetada kategoriaalseks tajuks (ingl Categorical Perception), kuid kuna taju on uurimisele üksnes kaudselt kättesaadav, siis tähistab see termin pigem eksperimentaalset mudelit või meetodit, millega uuritakse taju võimet foneeme kõnesignaalist eristada. (Schouten jt 2003) Käesolevas artiklis arutatakse kategoriaalse taju kui mudeli ja katsemeetodi üle, mille teoreetilised lähtekohad on olnud nii muudes keeltes kui eesti keeles läbi viidud tajukatsete ülesehituse ja järelduste eeldusteks.Categorical perception or the hypothesis of how we perceive linguistic units. The acoustic signal of everyday speech is very variable, but it seldom distracts the normal speech communication. This motivates the hypothesis that the speech perception must have developed a special mechanism for extracting phonemes from highly variable speech signal. This mechanism extracts phonemes so efficiently and quickly that we are often unaware of it. We would like to call this mechanism “categorical perception of speech”, but since the perceptual processes are only indirectly accessible for investigation, the term refers rather to a theoretical model or an experimental method for investigating our perceptual ability to distinguish phonemes from the speech signal so efficiently (Schouten et al. 2003). In this paper the Categorical Perception as an experimental method and its theoretical statements will be discussed in connection to perception experiments and findings in other languages as well as in Estonian language.

Non-native Japanese learners’ perception of consonant length in Japanese and Italian

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimiko Tsukada ◽  
Felicity Cox ◽  
John Hajek ◽  
Yukari Hirata
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Australian English ◽  
Japanese Learners

Learners of a foreign language (FL) typically have to learn to process sounds that do not exist in their first language (L1). As this is known to be difficult for adults, in particular, it is important for FL pedagogy to be informed by phonetic research. This study examined the role of FL learners’ previous linguistic experience in the processing of a contrast absent in the L1. The FLs under investigation are Japanese and Italian, which both use contrastive consonant length. Two groups of non-native Japanese (NNJ) learners – L1 Australian English (OZ) and L1 Korean – participated in the consonant length identification task. Neither OZ nor Korean has an underlying consonant length contrast, but Korean has non-contrastive lengthening of tense obstruents with corresponding shorter preceding vowels, which may be beneficial in perceiving consonant length in an FL. We have taken a novel, two-stage approach. First, we compared the perception of Japanese long/geminate and short/singleton consonants by the two groups of NNJ learners. Second, we investigated whether FL Japanese learning by the two groups transfers to the processing of consonant length in an unknown language, Italian. Native speakers of Japanese (NJ) and Italian (NI) were included as controls. They were familiar with contrastive consonant length in their L1, but were naïve to the other language. The NJ and NI groups accurately identified the consonant length category in their L1 but were slightly less accurate in the unknown language. The two NNJ groups were generally accurate (> 80%) in perceiving consonant length not only in Japanese, but also in Italian. However, the direction of NNJ learners’ misperception (i.e. singleton as geminate or geminate as singleton) varied, suggesting that some learners, according to their L1, may categorize length in Japanese and Italian differently rather than uniformly applying the concept of [±long].

scholarly journals R-Expressions and the Interrogative Use of Anaphora in Najdi Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mahmoud S. Al Mahmoud
Keyword(s):  
Central Region ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Najdi Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

This paper endeavors to explain how Najdi Arabic (NA), one of the dialects spoken in the central region of the Arabian Peninsula, diverges from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in its anaphoric treatment of R-expressions and pronominals. Data from a native Najdi Arabic informant suggest that only a subset of NA verbs allow proper names to be referentially bound by their antecedent pronouns in interrogative structures. Although this property is characteristic of Najdi Arabic not MSA, it yields certain challenges to the basic tenets of the Binding Theory. While Principle C of the Binding Theory requires R-expressions to be free, a referential reading of the NA data, which syntactically binds proper names with their pronominal referents, violates such principle. 

Acoustic and Perceptual Correlates of Stress in Nonwords Produced by Children With Suspected Developmental Apraxia of Speech and Children With Phonological Disorder

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Munson ◽  
Elissa M. Bjorum ◽  
Jennifer Windsor
Keyword(s):  
Group Differences ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Current Investigation ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Relative Duration ◽  
Perceptual Judgments ◽  
Acoustic Correlates ◽  
Stress Contour ◽  
Developmental Apraxia

Previous research (L. Shriberg, D. Aram, & J. Kwiatkowski, 1997b, 1997c) has suggested that accuracy in producing linguistic stress reliably distinguishes between children with suspected developmental apraxia of speech (sDAS) and children with phonological disorder (PD). The current investigation tested this hypothesis by examining acoustic correlates of stress in trochaic (strong-weak) and iambic (weak-strong) nonwords produced by 5 children in each of these 2 groups. Four measures relating to stress production were examined: vowel duration, fundamental frequency (f 0 ) at vowel midpoint, timing of the f 0 peak relative to vowel onset, and intensity at vowel midpoint. In addition, perceptual judgments of accuracy of stress production were obtained. No group differences in the production of stress were found; however, listeners judged that the nonword repetitions of children with sDAS matched the target stress contour less often than did the repetitions of children with PD. Multiple regression analyses found that mean vowel duration, as well as the relative duration and relative f 0 of stressed and stressless syllables, predicted listeners’ judgments of stress, although these variables only accounted for a small proportion of variance (21.8%). Thus, children with sDAS were able to produce acoustic differences between stressed and stressless syllables, but these differences were not consistently perceptible to listeners.

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