scholarly journals Detection of Non-native Speaker Status from Backwards and Vocoded Contentmasked Speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Rojczyk ◽  
Andrzej Porzuczek
Keyword(s):  
White Noise ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Temporal Organization ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
Suprasegmental Features ◽  
The Status ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
Vocoded Speech

This paper addresses the issue of speech rhythm as a cue to non-native pronunciation. In natural recordings, it is impossible to disentangle rhythm from segmental, subphonemic or suprasegmental features that may influence nativeness ratings. However, two methods of speech manipulation, that is, backwards content-masked speech and vocoded speech, allow the identification of native and non-native speech in which segmental properties are masked and become inaccessible to the listeners. In the current study, we use these two methods to compare the perception of content-masked native English speech and Polish-accented speech. Both native English and Polish-accented recordings were manipulated using backwards masked speech and 4-band white-noise vocoded speech. Fourteen listeners classified the stimuli as produced by native or Polish speakers of English. Polish and English differ in their temporal organization, so, if rhythm is a significant contributor to the status of non-native accentedness, we expected an above-chance rate of recognition of native and non-native English speech. Moreover, backwards content-masked speech was predicted to yield better results than vocoded speech, because it retains some of the indexical properties of speakers. The resultsshow that listeners are unable to detect non-native accent in Polish learners of English from backwards and vocoded speech samples.

scholarly journals When One Person's Mistake Is Another's Standard Usage: The Effect of Foreign Accent on Syntactic Processing

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 878-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Hanulíková ◽  
Petra M. van Alphen ◽  
Merel M. van Goch ◽  
Andrea Weber
Keyword(s):  
Speech Processing ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Integration Problem ◽  
Native Speech

How do native listeners process grammatical errors that are frequent in non-native speech? We investigated whether the neural correlates of syntactic processing are modulated by speaker identity. ERPs to gender agreement errors in sentences spoken by a native speaker were compared with the same errors spoken by a non-native speaker. In line with previous research, gender violations in native speech resulted in a P600 effect (larger P600 for violations in comparison with correct sentences), but when the same violations were produced by the non-native speaker with a foreign accent, no P600 effect was observed. Control sentences with semantic violations elicited comparable N400 effects for both the native and the non-native speaker, confirming no general integration problem in foreign-accented speech. The results demonstrate that the P600 is modulated by speaker identity, extending our knowledge about the role of speaker's characteristics on neural correlates of speech processing.

scholarly journals The perception of native vs. non-native Danish speech: Bent and Bradlow’s matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit revisited

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-296
Author(s):  
Paweł Korpal ◽  
◽  
Mikołaj Sobkowiak ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Language Pair

The main objective of the study was to test the applicability of Bent and Bradlow’s matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit to the Danish-Polish language pair. We aimed to verify whether it was easier for Polish students of Danish to understand a Danish native speaker or a Polish speaker with a proficient command of Danish. Sixteen Polish students, divided into two groups of eight, listened to two recordings of two Danish texts: one recorded by a native speaker of Danish and the other one — by a native speaker of Polish who is a graduate of Danish philology from a Polish university. Before the experiment, all of the recordings were evaluated in terms of traces of foreign accent using a 7-point Likert scale, the experts being native speakers of Danish. The evaluators assessed the Polish native speaker’s pronunciation as proficient, but they identified certain segmental and suprasegmental features in his speech that are common indicators of a foreign accent in Danish. During the experiment, participants were asked to fill in each recording transcript with twenty missing words. The analysis of the results revealed that the participants scored higher when listening to the text recorded by the Polish speaker. Hence, the matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit was observed in a study using Polish as L1 (native language) and Danish as a foreign language. The study may provide a valuable insight into the question of non-native speech perception, foreign-accented speech and the veracity of the matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for the Polish–Danish language pair.

Awareness-Raising in the TEFL Phonology Classroom

2004 ◽  
Vol 145-146 ◽  
pp. 219-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
British English ◽  
Linguistic Imperialism ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Suprasegmental Features ◽  
Discourse Intonation ◽  
Awareness Raising ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
The Impact

This paper reports on two phases of a study of a group of advanced TEFL (teachers-of-English-as-a-foreign-language) students. To raise their awareness of the importance of discourse intonation while they were receiving teacher training, this study focuses on examining their sociocultural and psychological inclinations in the choice of phonological models. The first phase is an exploration of their attitudes toward, a native-speaker variety (British English) and a nonnative (Chinese EFL-speaker) variety of English pronunciation and intonation. The second reports on a didactic intervention study of the impact of activities that engaged the students in the awareness-raising of the importance of suprasegmental features, especially discourse intonation, on self-perceptions of their efficacy and confidence in communication. The results showed a systematic pattern of participant endorsement for a native-speaker model and a clear improvement in theIr perceptions of the importance of suprasegmental features of standard English because of teacher-student co-construction of meaning through interactive awareness-raising activities. The findings are discussed with reference to the students' sociocultural and psychological needs in TEFL training, particularly with reference to recent academic discourse on the issue of “linguistic imperialism” (Canagarajah, 1999; Phillipson, 1992, 1996) and ElL in pedagogy (Jenkins, 1998, 2002) and their wider implications in typical EFL contexts.

scholarly journals Task-evoked pupil response for accurately-recognized accented speech

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Jordan McLaughlin ◽  
Kristin J. Van Engen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Recognition Accuracy ◽  
Speech Understanding ◽  
Pupil Response ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
Accented English

Unfamiliar second-language (L2) accents present a common challenge to speech understanding. However, the extent to which accurately-recognized unfamiliar L2-accented speech imposes a greater cognitive load than native speech remains unclear. The current study used pupillometry to assess cognitive load for native English listeners during the perception of intelligible Mandarin Chinese-accented English and American-accented English. Results showed greater pupil response (indicating greater cognitive load) for the unfamiliar L2-accented speech. These findings indicate that the mismatches between unfamiliar L2-accented speech and native listeners’ linguistic representations impose greater cognitive load even when recognition accuracy is at ceiling.

scholarly journals Fra hjelper til profesjonsutøver - profesjonalisering av tolkeyrket i Norge

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Kristine Angelshaug
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Graduate Degree ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
National Register ◽  
Professional Skills ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
Professional Title

The title “interpreter” is not a professional title in Norway; Norwegian legislation only applies to “sworn interpreters” authorized by the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi). The interpreter authorization scheme is one of the steps that have been taken to guarantee the quality of the interpreters and their services. Another step has been the creation of the National Register of Interpreters, which provides the public with access to qualified interpreters. However, the register is not flawless and may exclude well-qualified interpreters. The register has five qualification categories with different sets of requirements; the only problem is that the interpreter’s access to the different courses that enables the interpreter to enter the register is limited. This problem could be remedied easily by means of the official exams for the grant of the title ”sworn interpreter”, but regretfully the exams, as well as the necessary courses to advance from category to category in the register, are not available in all language combinations or on a frequent basis. The distinction between an “interpreter” and a “sworn interpreter” may not be the quality, as much as the professional title and having access to education. In this context, the importance of licensing or professionalization linked to the phenomenon of trust becomes evident. The foreign and native speaker have to communicate through an interpreter, they need to trust the interpreter in order to get their message through, but why anyone should do that without a guarantee that the interpreter is qualified is another question. Mainly non-professional interpreters perform interpretation in the public sector and several studies show that the interpreters lack linguistic and professional skills to do their job satisfactory. This problem should not be ignored, but rather properly addressed by establishing a professional graduate degree to ensure the quality of the interpreter and consolidate the status of the interpreter as a professional in the public sector in Norway. However, this is only one side of the problem, it is also necessary to promote and ensure the use of qualified labour in the public sector.

The Business of Pragmatics. The Case of Discourse Markers in The Speech of Students of Business English and English Linguistics

2011 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 10-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieven Buysse
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Business English ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Native Speech

Abstract This paper investigates how foreign language learners use discourse markers (such as so, well, you know, I mean) in English speech. These small words that do not contribute much, if anything at all, to the propositional content of a message but modify it in subtle ways, are often considered among the last elements acquired in a foreign language. This contribution reports on close scrutiny of a corpus of English-spoken interviews with Belgian native speakers of Dutch, half of whom are undergraduates majoring in Commercial Sciences and half of whom are majoring in English Linguistics, and sets it off against a comparable native speaker corpus. The investigation shows that the language learners exhibit a clear preference for “operative discourse markers” and neglect or avoid “involvement discourse markers”. It is argued that in learner speech the former take on functions typically fulfilled by the latter to a greater extent than in native speech, and that in some cases the learners revert to a code-switching strategy to cater for their pragmatic needs, bringing markers from Dutch into their English speech. Finally, questions are raised as to the place of such pragmatic devices in foreign language learning.

scholarly journals MOVEMENT TRANSFORMATION IN GAYO SYNTAX

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32
Author(s):  
Tri Murni ◽  
Robert Sibarani ◽  
Eddy Setia ◽  
Gustianigsih Gustianingsihh
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Substitution Rule ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
The Status ◽  
Movement Rules ◽  
Related Process

The purpose of this study is to present syntactic descriptions of how movement transformational rules apply in Gayo syntax and to examine the status of movement transformational rules in Gayo language (henceforth GL) in the theoretical framework of Transformational Linguistics (TL) proposed by Chomsky (1965, 1981) and Suhadi (2018). In this theory there are three kinds of syntactic rules: Movement Rule, Deletion Rule and Substitution Rule. The discussion focuses on Movement Transformational Rules in GL. Transformation is the inter-related process between the deep structure and the surface structure of a sentence by the application of one or more transformational rules. The method used in this study was descriptive qualitative approach as noted by Martin (2004). Descriptive research is to portray accurately the characteristics of a particular situation or group or individual with or without special initial hypotheses about the nature of these characteristics. Thus, descriptive research design was applied to give a detail description of a certain case accurately. The data were analyzed from two angles: the application and the status of movement rules in GL, which can be compulsory, optional, and restricted. The data of this research derived from some sentences in the folklore story written in GL and the invention of the writer herself as the native speaker of the language. The finding shows that all the twelve kinds of movement transformational rules proposed by Suhadi (2018) are relevant to apply in GL. After the application of movement rules, the main finding is on the status of movement transformational rules in GL in which it is found that four movement rules are compulsory, eight are optional and there is no restricted rule in the language.

scholarly journals Using a coupled-oscillator model of speech rhythm to estimate rhythmic variability in two Brazilian Portuguese varieties (CE and SP)

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. e577
Author(s):  
Pablo Arantes ◽  
Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Júnior
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
The State ◽  
Temporal Organization ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Entrainment Rate ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Bayesian Hierarchical ◽  
Syllable Duration ◽  
Natural Duration ◽  
Relative Change

This paper presents preliminary results of a semi-automatic methodology to extract three parameters of a dynamic model of speech rhythm. The model attempts to analyze the production of rhythm as a system of coupled oscillators which represent syllabicity and phrase stress as levels of temporal organization. The estimated parameters are the syllabic oscillator entrainment rate (alpha), the syllabic oscillator decay rate (beta), and the coupling strength between the oscillators (w0). The methodology involves finding the <alpha, beta, w0> combination that minimizes the distance between natural duration contours and simulated contours generated using several combinations of the parameters. The distance between natural and model-generated contours was measured in two ways by comparing: (1) plain or overt syllable to syllable duration and (2) relative change along both contours.We applied this methodology to read speech produced by five speakers of the state of Ceará (CE) and eight speakers of the state of São Paulo (SP). Mean w0 and alpha values are compatible with the view that Brazilian Portuguese is a mixed-rhythm language. Results from two bayesian hierarchical regression models do not suggest a difference between SP and CE speakers, but indicate a difference between the two methods, with the relative change method generating lower alpha values and higher w0 values, and the reverse for the plain duration method.

scholarly journals The Pluralization of Mass Nouns in European and Asian ELF

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-31
Author(s):  
Isabella Tinkel ◽  
Marie Deissl-O’Meara
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
The Status

English has become a global lingua franca unlike any language before. This has led to the increased pragmatic use of English by an increasing number of non-native speakers and, consequently, English as a lingua franca (ELF) has emerged. It has become a contact language between speakers of different mother tongues which has led to the blurring of strict regulatory frameworks formerly established by native English varieties. ELF speakers use English in creative ways and influenced by their native languages and cultures and the imitation of the native speaker has been pushed to the background in favor of successful communication. In order to facilitate the examination of this new type of English, several ELF corpora have been established, two of which are used for this study. The Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) and the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) are both collections of spoken interactions between ELF speakers that have the same size and rely on the same coding system and search parameters, which make them readily comparable. While these corpora have already aided in the discovery of several common features of ELF in general, this study focuses on the lexico-grammatical feature of the pluralization of mass nouns by either adding the ‘s’ or some type of quantifier in European and Asian ELF. Results show that Asian ELF speakers are less likely to pluralize mass nouns than European ELF speakers. Yet, pluralization can be found in both types of ELF and this, along with other specific, non-standard features, raises questions for English language teaching and the status of native English.

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