Regional Variation in New Zealand English: the Taranaki Sing-Song Accent

<p>Although lay people confidently assert the existence of regional varieties of New Zealand English, linguists have produced very little evidence to support such claims. There are vocabulary items special to, or favoured by, the people of Southland and the West Coast of the South Island; there are traces of non-prevocalic /r/in Southland and Otago; and there are regional differences in the playground language of New Zealand school children. Attempts to identify further differences between regions have generally not been successful. In most cases linguistic evidence has pointed to either social class or ethnic variation, but not to regional variation. Nevertheless, many New Zealanders assert that a Taranaki variety of New Zealand English exists. This study was designed to test the validity of the claim by comparing samples of New Zealand English from Taranaki with samples from Wellington. The Taranaki sample included speakers from New Plymouth (population 50,000) and the South Taranaki dairy farming community. The Wellington sample was drawn from the Greater Wellington region extending from Porirua in the north to suburbs on the southern coast of the city. Interviewees were located by the social network approach, otherwise known as the 'friend of a friend' approach advocated by Lesley Milroy (1980, 1987a). An index of rural orientation was devised to indicate the degree to which a speaker was oriented towards town or country. This proved helpful in distinguishing between genuinely regional differences, and rural versus urban differences. Factors of gender and age were also considered. It has been claimed that Taranaki English has a 'sing-song' quality, suggesting that an investigation of the intonation of Taranaki speakers would be worthwhile. Comparing features of the intonation of a Taranaki sample with a Wellington sample, this thesis attempts to isolate and measure what contributes to the 'sing-song' perception of Taranaki English. 'Singsong' in this context was taken to mean that the speaker had dynamic pitch; in other words their speech was characterised by a lot of movement up and down in pitch. Auditory analysis of speech samples was undertaken, and intonation features were derived from that analysis. Averaging the number of times a speaker changed pitch direction in each intonation group and then in each accent unit provided global measures of changes in pitch direction. Analysis of nuclear accents gave an indication of whether speakers favoured tunes which were characterised by pitch movement. And analysis of the manner in which accents were approached, whether with a boosted step up in pitch, or with a more standard onset, provided a narrower focus on the amount of pitch movement present. Results indicated that, in general, most Taranaki speakers in the sample showed more pitch dynamism than the Wellingtonians; for some features the males showed more pitch dynamism than the females; and, overall, the elderly speakers showed more pitch dynamism than the younger speakers. There were, however, important exceptions to these generalisations. Factors of Location, Gander and Age interacted significantly for all but one of the features examined and there were clear indications that intonational patterns are undergoing change in both regions studied. Explanations for the exceptional cases are explored in the thesis, and sociolinguistic, social network and geolinguistic theories provide possible clues as to the sources of the differences. Evidence of differences in the degree of pitch dynamism present in the intonation of the Taranaki and Wellington speakers supports claims about regional variation in New Zealand English intonation, but it does not in itself prove the existence of a uniquely Taranaki or a uniquely Wellington way of speaking English.</p>

Regional Variation in New Zealand English: the Taranaki Sing-Song Accent

<p>Although lay people confidently assert the existence of regional varieties of New Zealand English, linguists have produced very little evidence to support such claims. There are vocabulary items special to, or favoured by, the people of Southland and the West Coast of the South Island; there are traces of non-prevocalic /r/in Southland and Otago; and there are regional differences in the playground language of New Zealand school children. Attempts to identify further differences between regions have generally not been successful. In most cases linguistic evidence has pointed to either social class or ethnic variation, but not to regional variation. Nevertheless, many New Zealanders assert that a Taranaki variety of New Zealand English exists. This study was designed to test the validity of the claim by comparing samples of New Zealand English from Taranaki with samples from Wellington. The Taranaki sample included speakers from New Plymouth (population 50,000) and the South Taranaki dairy farming community. The Wellington sample was drawn from the Greater Wellington region extending from Porirua in the north to suburbs on the southern coast of the city. Interviewees were located by the social network approach, otherwise known as the 'friend of a friend' approach advocated by Lesley Milroy (1980, 1987a). An index of rural orientation was devised to indicate the degree to which a speaker was oriented towards town or country. This proved helpful in distinguishing between genuinely regional differences, and rural versus urban differences. Factors of gender and age were also considered. It has been claimed that Taranaki English has a 'sing-song' quality, suggesting that an investigation of the intonation of Taranaki speakers would be worthwhile. Comparing features of the intonation of a Taranaki sample with a Wellington sample, this thesis attempts to isolate and measure what contributes to the 'sing-song' perception of Taranaki English. 'Singsong' in this context was taken to mean that the speaker had dynamic pitch; in other words their speech was characterised by a lot of movement up and down in pitch. Auditory analysis of speech samples was undertaken, and intonation features were derived from that analysis. Averaging the number of times a speaker changed pitch direction in each intonation group and then in each accent unit provided global measures of changes in pitch direction. Analysis of nuclear accents gave an indication of whether speakers favoured tunes which were characterised by pitch movement. And analysis of the manner in which accents were approached, whether with a boosted step up in pitch, or with a more standard onset, provided a narrower focus on the amount of pitch movement present. Results indicated that, in general, most Taranaki speakers in the sample showed more pitch dynamism than the Wellingtonians; for some features the males showed more pitch dynamism than the females; and, overall, the elderly speakers showed more pitch dynamism than the younger speakers. There were, however, important exceptions to these generalisations. Factors of Location, Gander and Age interacted significantly for all but one of the features examined and there were clear indications that intonational patterns are undergoing change in both regions studied. Explanations for the exceptional cases are explored in the thesis, and sociolinguistic, social network and geolinguistic theories provide possible clues as to the sources of the differences. Evidence of differences in the degree of pitch dynamism present in the intonation of the Taranaki and Wellington speakers supports claims about regional variation in New Zealand English intonation, but it does not in itself prove the existence of a uniquely Taranaki or a uniquely Wellington way of speaking English.</p>

An interdisciplinary sound classification framework for environmental sound design

One of the objectives of architectural design is to create multi-sensory environments. The users are under the influence of a wide variety and intense perceptual data flow when users experience a designed space. Architects and environmental designers should not ignore the sense of hearing, one of the most important of the five primitive senses that allow us to experience the physical environment within the framework of creative thinking from the first stage of the design process. Today, auditory analysis of spaces has been studied under architectural acoustics, soundscapes, multi-sensory interactions, and sense of place. However, the current sound design methods implemented in the film and video game industries and industrial design have not been used in architectural design practices. Sound design is the art and application of making soundtracks in various disciplines and it involves recognizing, acquiring, or developing of auditory components. This research aims to establish a holistic architectural sound design framework based on the previous sound classification and taxonomic models found in the literature. The proposed sound design framework will help the architects and environmental designers classify the sound elements in the built environment and provide holistic environmental sound design guidelines depending on the spaces' functions and context.

Consonant Repertoire of a Prelinguistically Deaf Child with Late-Mapping Cochlear Implants

Objective: The present case study aims to report on the consonant repertoire during the pre-linguistic and first linguistic stage of a Greek-Cypriot speaking child bilaterally implanted with multichannel Cochlear Implants (CIs). Background: Children with Hearing Loss (HL) produce canonical babble later, and consonantal inventories of HL children are smaller. However, the consonant repertoire of CI Greek-speaking children has not been examined thus far and research on types of consonantal errors during phonological acquisition is scant. Clinical Case: A pre-linguistically deaf child (CY, 7;0 years old) received the first CI at 7 months of age, but the external part of the device was fitted at 2;7 years. An investigation of the child’s speech at 7;0 years was conducted through auditory analysis. The child’s canonical utterances were transcribed in IPA and his consonants were classified into subcategories, depending on articulation place, articulation manner and resonance. Regarding place, alveolar consonants were the main category produced. As regards manner, closed consonants was the first category to appear, while in terms of voicing, voiceless consonants were recorded more often than voiced ones. The analysis also showed that consonants /t/, /s/ and /p/ were dominant in the child’s speech and revealed several phonological processes. Conclusion: The present case holds special interest as the child’s phonological system is still between the pre-linguistic/first linguistic stages due to the delayed CI mapping. The results agree in part with several studies in the literature, while specific phonological error patterns observed, remain to be verified in other CI Greek-speaking children.

Stylization of Oral German Speech in Modern Media Discourse

В рамках медиариторики в фокусе внимания исследователей оказываются жанры устной коммуникации, передаваемой электронно-техническими средствами. Рассматриваются вопросы стилизации устной спонтанной немецкой речи на сегментном уровне в двух жанрах медийного дискурса — ток-шоу и телесериалах. Авторы выдвигают гипотезу, согласно которой в современных немецких телесериалах и ток-шоу в сценах, имитирующих ситуации бытового общения, говорящие реализуют вариант нормы со сниженным (телесериалы), а также высоким и средним (ток-шоу) артикуляционным напряжением в зависимости от коммуникативно значимого фактора. Данные перцептивно-слухового анализа подтверждают выдвинутые положения. Within the framework of media rhetoric researchers are interested in the genres of oral communication that can be transmitted through electronic means. The article is devoted to the problem of stylization on the segmental level of oral spontaneous German speech in two genres of media discourse, namely, talk shows and TV series. The authors propose a hypothesis that in modern German TV series and talk shows imitating everyday communication the speakers use a variant of the norm with reduced articulatory tension (TV series) and also with high or medium (talk shows) articulatory tension depending on communicatively significant factors. The results of the perceptual-auditory analysis confirm the proposed hypothesis.

“It makes It the Market”

Food-market speech is an under-researched area of third-wave variationist sociolinguistic studies. This study addresses the gap by exploring food-market speech styles and hawker personae. Combining descriptive auditory analysis and online questionnaire data, I demonstrate that situated discursive practices of prosodic variables construct both persuasive and aggressive speech styles, and they are stereotypically associated with female and male hawker personae. Furthermore, this paper also explores the ideological construal of hawking as authentic market-ness, further revealing the semiotic saliency and social significance of food-market hawking as not only the language of a speech community but the language of market.

Prosodic means of creating expressiveness in the rhetoric of United States televised presidential debates (on the example of Hillary Clinton's speech in 2016)

&nbsp;This article reviews the expressive potential of prosodic means in Hillary Clinton's speech at the 2016 United States presidential debates. Special attention is given to the discursive characteristics of the text, such prosodic parameters as pitch variation, pausing, pace and intensity, as well as use of word accent. The author employs the method of auditory analysis of politician&rsquo;s speech, and dwells on its certain fragments, which illustrate the effectiveness of suprasegmental modifications of speech for achieving an optimal rhetorical effect. The relevance of this research is substantiated by the need for comprehensive assessment of political discourse as a variation of communication with high manipulative potential. The scientific novelty consists in viewing the expressive capabilities of prosodic means in political discourse in light of extralinguistic factors that characterize the communicative situation, as well as in analysis of their functionality within a specific type of political discourse &ndash; the agonal genre, which brings its adversarial nature to the fore. The acquired results demonstrate the expressive potential of modifications of the key prosodic parameters in oral speech, and can be implemented in teaching the principles of analysis of political discourse texts from the perspective of expressive syntax, prosody, stylistic, and rhetoric to students majoring in philology.&nbsp;

Rhotics in Standard Scottish English

The present study investigates rhotics in Standard Scottish English (SSE). Drawing on an auditory analysis of formal speeches given in the Scottish parliament by 49 speakers (members of parliament and the general public), it examines whether an underlying rhotic standard exists for SSE speakers from all over Scotland, whether and where rhotics are realized as trills/taps or approximants, and what factors influence variation in the realization and distribution of rhotics. The results show that SSE is variably rhotic, with 54% of all non-linking coda /r/ realized, and that trills/taps are more frequent in intervocalic (onset and linking coda) position. The findings contradict the idea of SSE being generally rhotic but rather confirm previous reports of increasing occurrence of non-rhoticity, not just by specific speaker groups, but also in a formal context. They further show that variation in rhotics in SSE foremost tends to be affected by language-internal than language-external factors.

Phonological peculiarities (segmental level) of the French language in Pondicherry (India)

This article is dedicated to examination of phonological peculiarities of segmental level of the French language in Pondicherry, one of the regions of the Republic of India. This region is a former trading post of the Fifth Republic, and currently is part of the preserved so-called &ldquo;French India&rdquo;. The goal of this research consists in determination of phonetic peculiarities of the French language of the population of Pondicherry in comparison with the central norm of pronunciation in France. The authors conducted an auditory analysis of the text recorded by the broadcasters, as well as thoroughly analyzed its results. In the course of research, the authors examined the level of realization of phonological oppositions within the system of vowels; as well as peculiarities of pronunciation of consonants, preservation or non-preservation of the phenomenon of &ldquo;binding&rdquo;, along with the instances pronunciation or fall out of [&#601;] caduc. The main conclusion consists in confirmation of the assumption on the causes of certain difficulties in realization of the French norm of pronunciation among the residents of Pondicherry. The differences in phonological systems of the French and Tamil languages (native to the population of Pondicherry) are the cause of the emergence distortions or replacements of certain French phonetic sounds. The conducted determined the pronunciation characteristics of French language of the population of Pondicherry, which were affected by their native Tamil language.

Auditory attention disorders in the functioning of children’s language

Hearing has a decisive role in human life and human development. It conditions proper functioning in terms of both primary and higher skills. Sometimes, despite the normative level of physiological hearing, there are difficulties in perception and auditory analysis. The article describes the importance of the sense of hearing in human life. The auditory attention function and its components are described. Basic profiles of auditory attention occurring in children and the difficulties that they condition — especially in the development of communication competence and school situation — are also described. The article ends with developed proposals for strategies for working with children with impaired hearing attention. The recommendations developed are the result of literature studies, observations and numerous consultations with parents. The article aims to increase the awareness and alertness of teachers towards children with the behaviours described in the article.