The role of phonemes and syllables in the perceived similarity of speech sounds for children

“Street culture” is often considered a response to structural factors. However, the relationship between culture and structure has rarely been empirically analyzed. This article analyzes the role of three media representations of American street culture and gangsters—two films and the music of a rap artist—in the street culture of a disadvantaged part of Copenhagen. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork, this article demonstrates that these media representations are highly valuable to and influential among young men because of their perceived similarity between their intersectional structural positions and those represented in the media. Thus, the article illuminates the interaction between structural and cultural factors in street culture. It further offers a local explanation of the scarcely studied phenomenon of the influence of mass media on street culture, and a novel, media-based, local explanation of global similarities in different street cultures.

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Inferring recent evolutionary changes in speech sounds

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2020.0198 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 376 (1824) ◽

Author(s):

Steven Moran ◽

Nicholas A. Lester ◽

Eitan Grossman

Keyword(s):

Language Contact ◽

Language Evolution ◽

Speech Sounds ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Short Term ◽

The Past ◽

Evolutionary Changes ◽

The One ◽

The Impact

In this paper, we investigate evolutionarily recent changes in the distributions of speech sounds in the world's languages. In particular, we explore the impact of language contact in the past two millennia on today's distributions. Based on three extensive databases of phonological inventories, we analyse the discrepancies between the distribution of speech sounds of ancient and reconstructed languages, on the one hand, and those in present-day languages, on the other. Furthermore, we analyse the degree to which the diffusion of speech sounds via language contact played a role in these discrepancies. We find evidence for substantive differences between ancient and present-day distributions, as well as for the important role of language contact in shaping these distributions over time. Moreover, our findings suggest that the distributions of speech sounds across geographic macro-areas were homogenized to an observable extent in recent millennia. Our findings suggest that what we call the Implicit Uniformitarian Hypothesis, at least with respect to the composition of phonological inventories, cannot be held uncritically. Linguists who would like to draw inferences about human language based on present-day cross-linguistic distributions must consider their theories in light of even short-term language evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.

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The role of indexical cues in the distributional learning of phonetic categories.

10.31234/osf.io/zksaf ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Carla L. Hudson Kam

Keyword(s):

Real World ◽

Speech Sounds ◽

The Real ◽

Distributional Learning ◽

Distributional Cues ◽

Phonetic Categories

Theories of the distributional learning of phonetic categories assume that input provides reliable distributional cues for the categorization of speech sounds. In the real world, however, not all talkers produce exactly the same distributions of speech sounds, and the talker-dependent variation may undermine the reliability of the distributional cues. In this study, we investigated how learners might overcome talker-dependent variation. Specifically, we tested whether adults can learn two phonetic categories from input in which talker-dependent variation introduces potential ambiguities into the categorization of speech sounds. The results suggest that they can overcome this kind of ambiguity by using indexical information (i.e., the identity of talkers).

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Perceived Similarity in Identity Meanings, Identity Verification, and Positive Emotions

Identities in Everyday Life ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190873066.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 35-52

Author(s):

Matthew Grindal ◽

Ryan Trettevik

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Positive Emotions ◽

Identity Theory ◽

Past Research ◽

Dropping Out ◽

Student Identity ◽

Perceived Similarity ◽

Identity Verification ◽

Positive Feelings

Past research suggests that perceived similarity promotes good feelings and positive relationships between partners (Byrne, 1971). Current research in identity theory offers a theoretical framework for understanding part of this process. According to identity theory, when people experience identity verification, they feel good, which can generate social bonds. In this study, we examine the role of perceived similarity in identity meanings, and how this may be associated with identity verification, and in turn, positive feelings. Using survey data examining the student identity among a sample of college students, we find that students who perceive similarities between their own views of themselves as students and their close friends’ views of themselves as students are more likely to experience positive emotions. This effect is partially mediated by heightened identity verification. The theoretical implications for incorporating the concept of perceived similarity into identity theory are discussed, along with the applications of these findings to at-risk college students who are most vulnerable to dropping out.

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Cross-linguistic similarity in L2 speech learning: Evidence from the acquisition of Russian stop contrasts by Mandarin speakers

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658319900919 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 026765831990091

Author(s):

Yuxiao Yang ◽

Xiaoxiang Chen ◽

Qi Xiao

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

First Language ◽

Perceptual Discrimination ◽

Perceived Similarity ◽

Specific Research ◽

Speech Learning Model ◽

Chinese Learners ◽

Research Questions ◽

Speech Learning

This study investigated the role of cross-linguistic similarity in the acquisition of Russian initial stop contrasts by Chinese learners, addressing two specific research questions: (1) How similar are Russian voiced stops to Mandarin stops for Chinese learners? (2) How can the speech learning model (SLM) be applied to account for the acquisition of Russian initial stop contrasts by Chinese learners? Regarding the first question, a hypothesis was proposed that Russian voiced stops could be regarded as dissimilar ‘new’ sounds by Chinese learners, as judged by three commonly adopted methods: IPA comparison, acoustic difference, and feature redeployment. The results of the perceptual assimilation task, however, disconfirmed this hypothesis, as Russian voiced stops were perceived as being highly similar to the sounds of Mandarin voiceless unaspirated stops. According to SLM, perceptually similar second language (L2) sounds are difficult to acquire; hence, a corresponding hypothesis was advanced in relation to the second question; namely, that the acquisition of Russian initial stop contrasts could be challenging for Chinese learners. This hypothesis was supported by the results of the perceptual discrimination and the production tests. These findings corroborated SLM regarding the difficulty in acquiring L2 sounds that are perceptually similar to their first language (L1) counterparts, while posing challenges to the hypothesis that Russian voiced stops could be dissimilar ‘new’ sounds for Chinese learners, as predicted by the three methods. The results indicated that perceived cross-linguistic similarity plays a key role in L2 phonetic acquisition. However, the degree of perceived similarity cannot always be accurately deduced solely through the three methods, at least not in the case of stops.

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