scholarly journals Supra-segmental Details in Early Lexical Representations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Ren ◽  
James Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Familiar Word ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Preferential Looking

Recent studies have indicated that toddlers as young as 19 months old already have sophisticated phonological details in their lexical representations. Studies using word recognition tasks have also found that toddlers had graded sensitivities to varying degrees of mispronunciation changes in word onsets and vowels. However, existing studies have primarily investigated sensitivities to segments (vowels and consonants). Less is known about toddlers’ early lexical representations of supra-segmental units such as lexical tones. Unlike segmental units such as vowels and consonants, supra-segmental information is primarily carried across syllables. Phonetically, changes in supra-segmental units are broadly achieved by varying toddlers’ lexical representations of supra-segments. 19-month-old monolingual Mandarin learning toddlers were tested on their sensitivities to varying degrees of familiar word mispronunciations of lexical tones using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm (IPLP). The findings suggested that as toddlers’ sensitivities to mispronunciations increased as a function of the degree of the deviations from the correct forms, replicating previous studies for word-initial consonants and vowels. Therefore, 19-month-olds’ lexical representations appear to contain well-refined architecture in the supra-segmental dimensions.

scholarly journals Unstressed Vowel Reduction Across Majorcan Catalan Dialects: Production and Spoken Word Recognition

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miquel Llompart ◽  
Miquel Simonet
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Speech Performance

This study investigates the production and auditory lexical processing of words involved in a patterned phonological alternation in two dialects of Catalan spoken on the island of Majorca, Spain. One of these dialects, that of Palma, merges /ɔ/ and /o/ as [o] in unstressed position, and it maintains /u/ as an independent category, [u]. In the dialect of Sóller, a small village, speakers merge unstressed /ɔ/, /o/, and /u/ to [u]. First, a production study asks whether the discrete, rule-based descriptions of the vowel alternations provided in the dialectological literature are able to account adequately for these processes: are mergers complete? Results show that mergers are complete with regards to the main acoustic cue to these vowel contrasts, that is, F1. However, minor differences are maintained for F2 and vowel duration. Second, a lexical decision task using cross-modal priming investigates the strength with which words produced in the phonetic form of the neighboring (versus one’s own) dialect activate the listeners’ lexical representations during spoken word recognition: are words within and across dialects accessed efficiently? The study finds that listeners from one of these dialects, Sóller, process their own and the neighboring forms equally efficiently, while listeners from the other one, Palma, process their own forms more efficiently than those of the neighboring dialect. This study has implications for our understanding of the role of lifelong linguistic experience on speech performance.

scholarly journals Spoken word recognition in a second language: The importance of phonetic details

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110306
Author(s):  
Félix Desmeules-Trudel ◽  
Tania S. Zamuner
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Minimal Word ◽  
Vowel Nasalization

Spoken word recognition depends on variations in fine-grained phonetics as listeners decode speech. However, many models of second language (L2) speech perception focus on units such as isolated syllables, and not on words. In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated how fine-grained phonetic details (i.e. duration of nasalization on contrastive and coarticulatory nasalized vowels in Canadian French) influenced spoken word recognition in an L2, as compared to a group of native (L1) listeners. Results from L2 listeners (English-native speakers) indicated that fine-grained phonetics impacted the recognition of words, i.e. they were able to use nasalization duration variability in a way similar to L1-French listeners, providing evidence that lexical representations can be highly specified in an L2. Specifically, L2 listeners were able to distinguish minimal word pairs (differentiated by the presence of phonological vowel nasalization in French) and were able to use variability in a way approximating L1-French listeners. Furthermore, the robustness of the French “nasal vowel” category in L2 listeners depended on age of exposure. Early bilinguals displayed greater sensitivity to some ambiguity in the stimuli than late bilinguals, suggesting that early bilinguals had greater sensitivity to small variations in the signal and thus better knowledge of the phonetic cue associated with phonological vowel nasalization in French, similarly to L1 listeners.

Lexical tone variation and spoken word recognition in preschool children: effects of perceptual salience

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 924-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEHER SINGH ◽  
ALOYSIA TAN ◽  
THILANGA D. WEWALAARACHCHI
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
Developmental Course

AbstractChildren undergo gradual progression in their ability to differentiate correct and incorrect pronunciations of words, a process that is crucial to establishing a native vocabulary. For the most part, the development of mature phonological representations has been researched by investigating children's sensitivity to consonant and vowel variation, with a much lesser focus on lexical tones. The current study investigates sensitivity to lexical tones in word recognition with specific attention to role of perceptual salience. Chinese-speaking preschoolers were presented with familiar words that were correctly pronounced, substituted for a subtle tone variant (Tones 2 and 3), or substituted for a salient tone variant (Tones 1 and 4). Results demonstrated that subtle tone variants were mistakenly perceived as correct pronunciations and only salient tone variants were recognized as mispronunciations. Findings suggest that tone integration follows a more complex developmental course that previously concluded.

Gender-marked determiners help Dutch learners' word recognition when gender information itself does not

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIEKE VAN HEUGTEN ◽  
ELIZABETH K. JOHNSON
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Partial Knowledge ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
Article System

ABSTRACTDutch, unlike English, contains two gender-marked forms of the definite article. Does the presence of multiple definite article forms lead Dutch learners to be delayed relative to English learners in the acquisition of their determiner system? Using the Preferential Looking Procedure, we found that Dutch-learning children aged 1 ; 7 to 2 ; 0 use articles during sentence comprehension in a fashion comparable to similarly aged English learners. That is, Dutch learners' sentence processing was impaired when a nonsense (se) as opposed to real article (de, het) preceded target words, much like English learners' sentence processing is disrupted by the use of a nonsense article. At the same time, however, gender cues did not help Dutch learners recognize target nouns more efficiently, indicating that gender has yet to be acquired. Thus, although Dutch-learning children aged 1 ; 7 to 2 ; 0 have not mastered all aspects of their language's article system, they nonetheless use their partial knowledge of articles during speech processing.

Transfer of L1 visual word recognition strategies during early stages of L2 learning: Evidence from Hebrew learners whose first language is either Semitic or Indo-European

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Norman ◽  
Tamar Degani ◽  
Orna Peleg
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Familiar Word ◽  
Language Background ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
Beginning Learners ◽  
Word Pattern

The present study examined visual word recognition processes in Hebrew (a Semitic language) among beginning learners whose first language (L1) was either Semitic (Arabic) or Indo-European (e.g. English). To examine if learners, like native Hebrew speakers, exhibit morphological sensitivity to root and word-pattern morphemes, learners made an off-line graded lexical decision task on unfamiliar letter strings. Critically, these letter strings were manipulated to include or exclude familiar Hebrew morphemes. The results demonstrate differential morphological sensitivity as a function of participants’ language background. In particular, Indo-European-L1 learners exhibited increased sensitivity to word-pattern familiarity, with little effect of root familiarity. In contrast, Semitic-L1 learners exhibited non-additive sensitivity to both morphemes. Specifically, letter strings with a familiar root and a familiar word-pattern were the most likely to be judged as real words by this L1-Semitic group, whereas strings with a familiar root in the absence of a familiar word-pattern were the most likely to lead to a non-word decision. These findings show that both groups of learners activate their morphological knowledge in Hebrew in order to process unfamiliar Hebrew words. Critically, the findings further demonstrate transfer of L1 word recognition processes during the initial stages of second language (L2) learning.

A Preliminary Study of Subjective Frequency Estimates of Words Spoken in Cantonese

2001 ◽  
Vol 88 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1253-1258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. W. Yip
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
University Students ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Subjective Frequency ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Distributional Information ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Listening Task ◽  
Frequency Counts

A database is presented of the subjective frequency estimates for a set of 30 Chinese homophones. The estimates are based on analysis of responses from a simple listening task by 120 University students. On the listening task, they are asked to mention the first meaning thought of upon hearing a Chinese homophone by writing down the corresponding Chinese characters. There was correlation of .66 between the frequency of spoken and written words, suggesting distributional information about the lexical representations is generally independent of modality. These subjective frequency counts should be useful in the construction of material sets for research on word recognition using spoken Chinese (Cantonese).

Morphological Development in Normal and Clinical Populations

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1250-1258
Author(s):  
Joanna Morris
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Recognition System ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Language Difficulties ◽  
Skilled Reading ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Clinical Populations

Purpose The goal of this review article is to summarize what is currently known about morphological processing in both normal and clinical populations in order to present unexplored opportunities to focus remediation efforts for children with language difficulties. Method Existing evidence was collected via a computerized database search, and the data were summarized in a narrative review. Conclusions Strong, precise lexical representations are key to skilled reading and writing performance, and the available evidence suggests that, in order to become efficient readers, English-speaking children must acquire a rapid and flexible word recognition system that can accommodate the quasiregular morpho-orthographic to semantic mappings that characterize English. Individual differences may affect how easily children are able to discover these regularities on the basis of linguistic experience and make use of sublexical morphemic constituents in visual word recognition.

Adaptation to an Unfamiliar Accent by Child L2 Listeners

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092093632
Author(s):  
Chieh-Fang Hu
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Additional Advantage ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Referent Selection ◽  
Phonological Categories ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Acceptability Criteria

The study examines school-aged L2 listeners’ adaptation to an unfamiliar L2 accent and learner variables predicting such adaptation. Fourth-grade Mandarin L1 learners of English as a foreign language ( N = 117) listened to a story twice in one of three accent conditions. In the single-talker condition, the story was produced by an Indian English (IE) speaker. In the multi-talker condition, the story was produced by two IE speakers. In the control condition, the story was produced by a Mandarin-accented speaker. Children’s (re)interpretation of IE words/nonwords was assessed by referent selection tests administered before and after the first and the second exposures to the story. Repeated exposure to IE-accented speech forms influenced performance: the participants demonstrated better recognition of IE words across the referent selection tests but worse (re)interpretation of IE nonwords sounding similar to existing lexical items. Exposure to an IE-accented story yielded an additional advantage in word recognition, but the advantage was limited to words heard in the story. Furthermore, children’s English phonological awareness, phonological memory, and vocabulary predicted their reinterpretation performance of the accented forms. These results suggest that school-aged L2 listeners with better phono-lexical representations develop better capacity in adapting to an unfamiliar accent of a foreign language by loosening their acceptability criteria for word recognition but the adaptation does not necessarily entail perceptual tuning to the specific phonological categories of the accent.

scholarly journals Monodialectal and multidialectal infants’ representation of familiar words

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAMANTHA DURRANT ◽  
CLAIRE DELLE LUCHE ◽  
ALLEGRA CATTANI ◽  
CAROLINE FLOCCIA
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Representation ◽  
Early Infancy ◽  
Homogenous Group ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Related Variation ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Dialect Variation

ABSTRACTMonolingual infants are typically studied as a homogenous group and compared to bilingual infants. This study looks further into two subgroups of monolingual infants, monodialectal and multidialectal, to identify the effects of dialect-related variation on the phonological representation of words. Using an Intermodal Preferential Looking task, the detection of mispronunciations in familiar words was compared in infants aged 1;8 exposed to consistent (monodialectal) or variable (multidialectal) pronunciations of words in their daily input. Only monodialectal infants detected the mispronunciations whereas multidialectal infants looked longer at the target following naming whether the label was correctly produced or not. This suggests that variable phonological input in the form of dialect variation impacts the degree of specificity of lexical representations in early infancy.

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