Contrast implementation affects phonetic variability: A case study of Hindi and English stops

There is a large body of work in phonetics and phonology demonstrating sources and structure of acoustic variability, showing that variability in speech production is not random. This paper examines the question of how variability itself varies across languages and speakers, arguing that differences in extent of variability are also systematic. A classic hypothesis from Dispersion Theory (Lindblom, 1986) posits a relationship between extent of variability and phoneme inventory size, but this has been shown to be inadequate for predicting differences in phonetic variability. I propose an alternative hypothesis, Contrast-Dependent Variation, which considers cue weight of individual phonetic dimensions rather than size of phonemic inventories. This is applied to a case study of Hindi and American English stops and correctly predicts more variability in English stop closure voicing relative to Hindi, but similar amounts of lag time variability in both languages. In addition to these group-level between- language differences, the results demonstrate how patterns of individual speaker differences are language-specific and conditioned by differences in phonological contrast implementation.

Considerații lingvistice privind fitonimele românești care implică termenul „crăciun”

Our paper aims to reveal an inventory, an interpretation and a statistical analysis of Romanian names of plants which implicates the term Crăciun (Christmas), spread through the botanical terminology, a phenomenon which, as considered by E. Coşeriu is not enough highlighted (given that the individual speaker became creator of language / poetry whenever he named a flower. Botanical popular terminology has primarily a practical value, designating, distinguishing and categorizing elements of the plant kingdom within the given natural reign, but also has a high theoretical significance, especially for linguists, both by the ethimons to which they send back and by the metaphorical meanings the phytonims mostly have.

Officiality and strategic ambiguity in language policy: exploring migrant experiences in Andorra and Luxembourg

This article examines de jure language officialization policies in Andorra and Luxembourg, and addresses how these are discursively reproduced, sustained or challenged by members of resident migrant communities in the two countries. Although the two countries bear similarities in their small size, extensive multilingualism and the pride of place accorded to the ‘small’ languages of Catalan and Luxembourgish respectively, they have adopted different strategies as regards according official status to the languages spoken there. We start by undertaking a close reading of language policy documents and highlight the ways that they are informed by ‘strategic ambiguity’, wherein certain key elements are deliberately left open to interpretation via a range of textual strategies. We then conduct a thematic analysis of individual speaker testimonies to understand how this strategic ambiguity impacts on the ways that speakers negotiate fluid multilingual practices while also having to navigate rigid monolingual regimes. In given contexts, these hierarchies privilege Catalan in Andorra and Luxembourgish in Luxembourg, particularly in relation to the regimentation of migrants' linguistic behaviour. In this way, the paper provides insights into the complex ideological fields in which small languages are situated and demonstrates the ways in which language policy is intertwined with issues of power and dominance.

Societal multilingualism à la balkanique: The Montenegrin Velja Gorana and beyond

Aims and objectives: The goal of the article is to explore the properties of bilingual and multilingual situations with balanced, or non-polyglossic, relationships between languages in the modern Balkans. A comparison with non-balanced, or polyglossic, settings aims at determining the factors that support balanced bilingualism in one Balkan community and result in different dominance configurations in the others. Methodology: We focus, on the one hand, on the community’s inner diversity and the variation in linguistic competence among its individual members, showing how the differences of the various groups of speakers contribute to the maintenance of bilingualism in the community across several generations. On the other hand, we consider speech community as a unit of study and see how factors such as geographical location, size, and presence or absence of ties with the surrounding region, contribute to the loss or maintenance of community bilingualism and multilingualism in different parts of the Balkan linguistic area. Findings: The main case that is scrutinized is the situation of “balanced language contact” in a small-scale village community of Velja Gorana (Montenegro). Its analysis is based on field observations made in the bilingual families of Velja Gorana in 2013 to 2015. Besides, we overview a range of Balkan bilingual and multilingual communities, based on the existing literature, and analyse the patterns of (socio)linguistic dominance of the languages spoken in each community. Originality: The article provides a description of a balanced situation in the modern Balkans and offers a model for understanding of the Balkan bilingualism and multilingualism, taking into consideration several factors interacting at different levels, from individual speaker to the speech community. Implications: The proposed model explains the diversity of bilingual and multilingual situations of the modern Balkans. This enables us to make predictions about the ways of development of these situations and suggest how the past Balkan situations could have been organized.

Using hidden Markov models to find discrete targets in continuous sociophonetic data

Advances in sociophonetic research resulted in features once sorted into discrete bins now being measured continuously. This has implied a shift in what sociolinguists view as the abstract representation of the sociolinguistic variable. When measured discretely, variation is variation in selection: one variant is selected for production, and factors influencing language variation and change are influencing the frequency at which variants are selected. Measured continuously, variation is variation in execution: speakers have a single target for production, which they approximate with varying success. This paper suggests that both approaches can and should be considered in sociophonetic analysis. To that end, I offer the use of hidden Markov models (HMMs) as a novel approach to find speakers’ multiple targets within continuous data. Using the lot vowel among whites in Greater St. Louis as a case study, I compare 2-state and 1-state HMMs constructed at the individual speaker level. Ten of fifty-two speakers’ production is shown to involve the regular use of distinct fronted and backed variants of the vowel. This finding illustrates HMMs’ capacity to allow us to consider variation as both variant selection and execution, making them a useful tool in the analysis of sociophonetic data.

The Perception and Use of High-Frequency Speech Energy: Clinical and Research Implications

Purpose High-frequency speech energy (above approximately 4–5 kHz) is garnering substantial research attention. This review surveys recent evidence surrounding the presence and use of perceptual information in the high-frequency region. Additionally, clinical and research applications relevant to speech, language, and hearing professionals are discussed. Method Five databases were used during the search (Medline, CINAHL, WorldCat, ERIC, and Google Scholar). Criteria for study inclusion included (a) peer review, (b) utilization of high-frequency energy (above approximately 4 kHz) during the experimental tasks, and (c) were published from 2014 to present. Fifty-seven articles were included for review, and after further inspection, 13 met the inclusion criteria and were retained. Results Thirteen peer-reviewed studies provided evidence to support the supposition that important and useable acoustic cues exist in the high-frequency portion of the speech spectrum. Conclusions Considering the evidence discussed in this document, it is apparent that the high-frequency region contains additional perceptual cues than currently assumed. Specifically, acoustic cues regarding segmental information (vowel and consonant identification), individual speaker identity, and speaker sex are available for use by human listeners and automated machine recognition systems. Additionally, the high-frequency speech region may reduce listening effort and improve speech recognition in noisy listening conditions, particularly when the speech and noise are spatially separated. Therefore, clinicians and researchers should be aware of this information, which can inform clinical practice when fitting amplification devices for various clinical populations and experimental research for speech and hearing scientists.

Considerații lingvistice privind fitonimele românești construite cu ajutorul termenului „vânt” (II)

In the folkloric creations of the Romanians the wind has deep mythological implications. Our paper aims to reveal an inventory, an interpretation and a statistical analysis of Romanian names of plants which implicates the word „wind”, spread through the botanical terminology, a phenomenon which, as considered by E. Coşeriu is not enough highlighted (given that the individual speaker became creator of language / poetry whenever he named a flower. Botanical popular terminology has primarily a practical value, designating, distinguishing and categorizing elements of the plant kingdom within the given natural reign, but also has a high theoretical significance, especially for linguists, both by the ethimons to which they send back and by the metaphorical meanings the phytonims mostly have.

Quick Overview for Multi-target Tracking

Tracking an unknown and time-varying number of targets (e.g., speakers) in indoor environments using audio-visual (AV) modalities has received increasing interest in numerous fields including video conferencing, individual speaker discrimination, and human-computer interaction. The audio-visual sequential Monte Carlo probability hypothesis density (AV-SMC-PHD) filter is a popular baseline for multi-target tracking, offering an elegant framework for fusing audio-visual information and dealing with a varying number of speakers. However, the performance of this filter can be adversely affected by the weight degeneracy problem, where the weights of most of the particles may become very small, while only few remain significant, during the iteration of the algorithm. In this paper, we will short discuss the multi-target tracking.