Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Second language speech production'
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Lukach, Melanie. "Speech production processing in the second language." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/6779.
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The phenomenon of foreign accent has long been a topic of linguistic theory. Neufeld proposes that speech production, especially at the phonological level, is hampered by the use of (conscious or unconscious) knowledge that speakers have about the L2--metalinguistic knowledge. Those who begin acquiring an L2 after the age of five focus more on structural correctness than younger learners, and tend to use this metalinguistic knowledge more often. Thus even among balanced bilinguals, on an experiment designed to induce focus on form, older learners should perform more speech errors and dysfluencies than native speakers or early bilinguals, and tend to correct more. This pattern should be even more pronounced in learners who have acquired their L2 in a formal (school) context. An experiment consisting of five tasks was designed to test these three points of Neufeld's Pre- and Post-Articulatory Verification (PAV) model. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Préfontaine, Yvonne Marie. "Fluency in French : a psycholinguistic study of second language speech production and perception." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.658086.
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This thesis presents the results of a mixed methods study examining L2 utterance and perceived fluency in French under three different task conditions, an area in which little empirical research has been conducted from a psycholinguistic perspective. It investigated the following speech production and perception issues: (1) automated utterance fluency measures and their relationship to perceived task difficulty, (2) participants' and raters' perceptions of fluency and their link to utterance fluency measures and task complexity, and (3) speech characteristics that most influenced judgments of fluent performance. The study took place in a French immersion context in a university setting in Quebec, Canada. Forty English-speaking adults, varying in proficiency level, responded to three narrative speech tasks differing in cognitive demand. Utterance fluency was operationalized by a set of six temporal variables and measured by automated speech analysis software. Perceived fluency was assessed quantitatively by participants' and raters' fluency ratings, and qualitatively by justifications of the speech characteristics which most influenced raters' impressions.
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Leather, Jonathan Haworth. "Speech pattern elements in second language acquisition : perception and production of Chinese tonal contrasts." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.295152.
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Kato, Kazue. "Second language (L2) segmental speech learning : perception and production of L2 English by Japanese native speakers." Thesis, University of Essex, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.413228.
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Cope, Elizabeth. "The Influence of Task Type on Speech Production by Second Language Learners of German: An Electropalatographic Study." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7703.
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Electropalatography (EPG) is a computer-based system that tracks and measures contact patterns between the tongue and palate during speech production. The present study is focused on how the lingua-palatal contact patterns of native English speakers learning German as a second language (L2) differ as a function of task type. The fricatives ich-Laut [ç] and ach-Laut [x] were used as the target sounds, placed in nonsense words, short sentences, and spontaneous speech. The productions of the fricatives in the varying speech tasks were gathered from 12 university students enrolled in their second semester of a university level course of German. Comparisons were made using electrode mappings, percentages of regional contact, duration, and center of gravity measures. Duration measures showed that nonsense words were found to have the greatest duration for both fricatives when compared to the other task types. Percentage of activation measures showed that [ç] presented with similar activation in the medial and posterior regions of the palate across task type, whereas the activation in medial and posterior regions for [x] were found to differ more significantly across task type. Specifically, short sentences and spontaneous speech had similar posterior activation, but differed in medial activation, while nonsense words were different in both regions. Center of gravity measures were also greater in short sentences and spontaneous speech compared to nonsense words for [x]. It is anticipated that the data and information in this thesis will provide insights into the role of linguistic task type and EPG technology as instructional tools for L2 learners.
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DeMasi, Teresa. "Clear speech effects for vowels produced by monolingual and bilingual talkers." [Tampa, Fla.] : University of South Florida, 2007. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002110.
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Avello, Pilar. "L2 phonological development in speech production during study abroad." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/128624.
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The present study investigates the impact of a 3-month study abroad (SA)
period on second language (L2) phonological development in speech
production by means of acoustic-phonetic measures, as well as listeners’
assessment of perceived foreign accent (FA). Speech samples were
collected from 23 bilingual Spanish/Catalan learners of English before
(Pre-test) and after (Post-test) SA. Acoustic-phonetic measures consisted
of measurements for voice onset time (VOT) in voiceless plosives and for
vowel duration and quality, together with error rate scores resulting from
the computation of pronunciation errors. Perceived FA measures were
obtained from a group of native listeners (n=20) and another group of
non-native listeners (n=37) who performed a rating task. Results failed to
yield a large effect of SA in VOT and vowel measures, although they
indicated a slight decrease in perceived FA and a significant improvement
in error rate scores after SA. High correlations were found between the
acoustic-phonetic measures and the FA ratings.Este estudio investiga el impacto de una estancia de 3 meses en el extranjero (ES) en la producción oral de una segunda lengua (L2) a través de medidas fonético-acústicas y de percepción del acento extranjero. El corpus está constituido por datos orales recogidos de un grupo de 23 aprendices de inglés hablantes nativos de español y catalán. Las muestras de habla fueron recogidas antes (Pre-test) y después (Post-test) de la ES. Las medidas fonético-acústicas incluyen el análisis de la aspiración en oclusivas sordas y de duración y cualidad vocálicas, así como la computación de errores de pronunciación. Las medidas de percepción del acento extranjero fueron proporcionadas por un grupo de oyentes nativos (n=20) y otro grupo de oyentes no nativos (n=37). Los resultados no arrojan mejoras tras la ES en las medidas de producción vocálica y de aspiración, a la vez que indican una ligera mejora en cuanto a la producción de acento extranjero y un descenso significativo en el número de errores de pronunciación. Se hallaron asimismo correlaciones altas entre las medidas fonético-acústicas y las de percepción del acento extranjero.
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Bianchi, Michelle. "Effects of clear speech and linguistic experience on acoustic characteristics of vowel production." [Tampa, Fla.] : University of South Florida, 2007. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002084.
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Shaeffer, Alexandra Courtney. "Complaints in L2 French: perception and production across social contexts." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6500.
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Complaining happens in all cultures, and offers a unique insight into the values, taboos, and communicative practices of a given society. The ways in which complaining is viewed and performed vary drastically not only cross-culturally, but across smaller communal groups and between individuals, too. This dissertation approaches complaining from a multilateral perspective to investigate how individuals in three different language groups – monolingual French speakers, monolingual English speakers, and native English speakers enrolled in upper-division university French courses – perceive and produce complaints as well as the influential role played by social context.
In the perception study, the researcher explores how individuals within the examined language groups identify the presence of complaints and perceive their naturalness when presented with contextualized scenarios involving native speakers. In the production study, the researcher examines both the frequency with which individuals complain and the strategies they employ to perform a complaint in various social situations. Additionally, within the production study the researcher examines the frequency with which participants opt out from complaining and their provided rationale for doing so.
This dissertation not only identifies a variety of universal linguistic and sociocultural features of complaints, it also uncovers several aspects distinctive to the individual language groups. At the core of this dissertation is the argument that to best understand complaint behavior, researchers should acknowledge the essential influence of social context on both the perception and production of complaints. Above all, future research must consider the complex and dynamic interplay that exists between cross-cultural complaint behaviors and social norms of politeness.
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Yang, Bei. "A model of Mandarin tone categories--a study of perception and production." Diss., University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/764.
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The current study lays the groundwork for a model of Mandarin tones based on both native speakers' and non-native speakers' perception and production. It demonstrates that there is variability in non-native speakers' tone productions and that there are differences in the perceptual boundaries in native speakers and non-native speakers.
There are four experiments in this study. Experiment 1 utilizes native speakers' production data from a published speech database to explore the features of tone production by native speakers. Inter-speaker normalization is used to analyze the data. Experiment 2 synthesizes 81 tones that are carried by four sentences to measure perception by native and non-native speakers. The intra-speaker and inter-speaker normalization is used to investigate the perceptual space of T1, T2, T3, and T4. The researcher also explores the salient features distinguish native speakers' and non-native speakers' perception of the four principal tones. Experiment 3 uses both synthesized tones and natural tones that are carried by sentences to explore how pitch values of tones create overlapping areas in the perceptual map. Experiment 4 examines tone production by non-native speakers to identify the differences between native speakers' perception and non-native speakers' production; and the differences between non-native speakers' perception and their production of tones.
The results of the perception and production experiments with native speakers show the perceptual boundaries and tonal categories in the perceptual space and the production space. The difference of native speakers' perception and production shows us the perceptual cue for perception. Meanwhile, the similarities of native speakers' perception and production reveal the acoustic cues, including register and contour, for tone perception and production. The results of the perception experiments with non-native speakers indicate that there are no clear boundaries, and that tone overlap in the perceptual space. Register plays an important role in the perception of tones by non-native speakers. The results of non-native speaker production also show overlapping tones in the acoustic space. The non-native speaker production appears to be determined by the contour of the tones in contrast both the contour and register determine the tonal categories of native speaker.
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Wottawa, Jane. "Production & Perception in a second language the case of French learners of German : evidence from large speech corpora, electroencephalography, and teaching." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017USPCA141.
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Ce projet de recherche vise à étudier la production et la perception de la parole chez les apprenants francophones de l’allemand. Un corpus de parole de 7 heures correspondant à trois tâches (imitation, lecture, description) a été enregistré. Il comprend des germanophones natifs et des apprenants francophones. Nous avons analysée les productions des segments intéressants d'après le cadre du SLM. Une étude de perception en EEG utilisant [h-ʔ], [ʃ-ç] et les voyelles courtes et longues a été réalisée sur des germanophones natifs et des apprenants francophones. Enfin, l'impact de l'enseignement sur l'amélioration des production et perception a été examiné à travers une étude longitudinale. L'étude de production montre que, suivant les tâches, les apprenants produisent le [h] en début de mot sans problème majeur. De même, ils peuvent produire des voyelles de durée contrastive. Cependant, pour les trois tâches, les apprenants ont plus de difficultés pour la production de la qualité vocalique, de [ç] et [ŋ]. Fait notable, la perception ne reflète pas toujours la production. Les apprenants tendent à ne pas percevoir le [h] en début de mot alors que la production de ce segment en répétition est bonne. À l'inverse, les apprenants perçoivent le contraste [ʃ-ç] mais sa production reste difficile. Seulement dans les voyelles courtes et longues, la perception reflète la production.L'étude d'enseignement montre que la conscience linguistique affecte différemment perception et production : une conscience linguistique accrue permet d'affiner la perception de phonèmes à contenu acoustique complexe et la production des phonèmes faciles à produire du point de vue articulatoireThis research project proposes to investigate the production and perception of German speech in French learners of German. A 7h speech corpus containing three production tasks (imitation, reading, description) produced by German natives and French learners was recorded. Segmental productions of challenging vowels and consonants were analysed according to the SLM. A perception experiment involving [h-ʔ], [ʃ-ç] and short and long vowels using EEG was carried out on German natives and French learners. Finally, the impact of pronunciation teaching on improved speech production and perception was investigated. Undergraduates following a stand-alone pronunciation class were recorded and performed perception tests before and at the end of the course. The production study showed that French learners may produce word-initial [h] faithfully. With regard to short and long vowels, contrasting vowel duration is produced. However, French learners encounter more difficulties with respect to vowel quality. This holds for the production of [ç] and [ŋ]. Interestingly, perception does not always mirror production. The EEG results showed that the perception of word-initial [h] is poor in French learners whereas production accuracy is good. On the contrary, French learners perceive the [ʃ-ç] contrast but its production remains difficult. Only in short and long vowels, perception mirrored production. The teaching study showed that the increased linguistic awareness may affect non-native speech perception and production in different ways: phones that are easy to produce from an articulatory point of view can benefit from teaching. Increased awareness helps to better perceive phones with rich acoustic information
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Wisniewska, Natalia. "Pronunciation learning through captioned videos: Gains in L2 speech perception and production." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/671457.
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This doctoral dissertation examines the benefits of extended exposure to multimodal input through captioned videos for second language pronunciation development. It investigates the effects of TV viewing on both L2 speech processing and perceptual and productive accuracy in learners’ L2 phonology. It also analyses learners' eye-movements while watching captioned videos in order to relate the amount of on-screen text processing to pronunciation gains. Ninety Spanish/Catalan adult learners of English (EFL) were tested on speech processing skills (segmentation, speed of lexical access, and sentence processing) and phonological accuracy in perception (ABX discrimination) and production (accentedness ratings) before and after an 8- week treatment consisting of regular exposure to audiovisual materials. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions involving two viewing modes (captioned or uncaptioned) and two task focus conditions (focus on phonetic form or focus on meaning). The results revealed that exposure to authentic audiovisual materials in English can benefit the L2 pronunciation of post-intermediate/advanced EFL learners irrespective of viewing mode. Whereas previous studies had found larger benefits for captioned than uncaptioned viewing for speech processing and segmentation after short (e.g. single-session) exposures, the relatively long exposure treatment administered in the current study and inclusion of a form or a meaning-focused condition might have washed away potential advantages of one viewing mode over another. Viewing treatment benefits on L2 speech processing were larger on tasks assessing sentence-level than word- or segment-level gains. No significant benefits were found for phonological accuracy in perception. In production, the results revealed an interplay between viewing mode and task focus, indicating that a focus on phonetic form improved pronunciation only in the absence of captions, whereas captioned viewing led to pronunciation gains as long as there was no focus on phonetic form. Cognitive
overload might explain why no benefits were obtained when attention was directed to pronunciation in a captioned viewing mode. Although large individual differences characterized L2 learners' caption reading behaviour, which was influenced by material-related as well as learner-related factors, the results indicated a relationship between amount of subtitle processing and foreign accent reduction. Viewing mode moderated foreign accent reduction, as incidental learning of pronunciation occurred only through exposure to captioned viewing without a focus on pronunciation, whereas in the absence of captions gains were driven by an intentional focus on pronunciation. Taken as a whole, this dissertation suggests that enriching the limited L2 input learners are exposed to in foreign language settings through the viewing of authentic audiovisual materials in target language may enhance L2 pronunciation development.Esta tesis doctoral examina los beneficios de la exposición prolongada a programas de televisión en inglés con subtítulos para mejorar la pronunciación. La tesis investiga los efectos de la exposición multimodal tanto en el procesamiento del habla como en la corrección fonético-fonológica a nivel perceptivo y productivo del inglés como lengua extranjera. Con este propósito, el estudio analiza los movimientos oculares de los estudiantes mientras visualizan videos subtitulados y poder así relacionar la cantidad del texto procesado en los subtítulos con posibles mejoras en la percepción y producción fonético-fonológica. Noventa estudiantes universitarios, estudiantes de inglés como segunda lengua, fueron evaluados respecto de sus habilidades para el procesamiento del habla en inglés (segmentación, velocidad de acceso léxico y procesamiento del habla en frases) y corrección fonológica en la percepción (discriminación ABX) y producción (nivel perceptivo de acento extranjero) antes y después de un tratamiento de 8 semanas de exposición regular a materiales audiovisuales (películas de video). Los participantes fueron asignados aleatoriamente a cuatro condiciones experimentales que implicaban dos modos de visualización (con subtítulos o sin subtítulos) y dos condiciones de enfoque de la tarea de visualización de los vídeos (un enfoque en el que se induce una atención a la forma fonética de las palabras u otro en el que se induce una atención al significado). Esta tesis demuestra que la visualización de materiales audiovisuales auténticos en la lengua extranjera puede, además de facilitar un mayor contacto con la lengua inglesa en contextos de instrucción sometidos a un input lingüístico mínimo, mejorar el desarrollo de la pronunciación en una segunda lengua.
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Lindqvist, Christina. "L'influence translinguistique dans l'interlangue française : Étude de la production orale d'apprenants plurilingues." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm University, Department of French, Italian and Classical Languages, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-1294.
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The present study concerns cross-linguistic influence in the spoken French of multilingual learners. The main purpose is to investigate to what degree, and in what manner, previously acquired languages (L1, L2(s)) influence the target language, L3. Given the fact that the study only concerns spoken interlanguage, it makes use of a psycholinguistic perspective, which takes models of oral production into account.
The analysis is divided into two main parts. The first concerns the oral production of 30 Swedish learners of French, who fall into three groups according to their previous exposure to French: beginners, secondary school students and university students. The results show that proficiency in the L3 is crucial in at least two ways. First, there is a correlation between the level of proficiency in the L3 and the number of instances of cross-linguistic influence in that the least advanced learners produce the highest number of cross-linguistic lexemes, whereas the most advanced learners produce the lowest number. Second, the level of proficiency in the L3 is decisive for the number of background languages (L1, L2) used during oral production in L3: the lower the proficiency in the L3, the more background languages are used, and vice versa.
The second part of the analysis contains six case studies of learners with partly different L1s and L2s. It focuses on the roles of the background languages during conversation in L3 and on the factors contributing to the attribution of these roles. The results point at both similarities and differences between the learners with respect to the roles of the background languages. A result common to all the learners is the use of Swedish L1/L2 and English L1 as an instrumental language, i.e. a language used rather strategically with a communicative purpose. The use of these languages in this function seems to be due to the fact that Swedish and English are shared languages between the learner and the interlocutor.
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Sakamoto, Emi. "Investigation of factors behind foreign accent in the L2 acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch accent by adult English speakers." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/5692.
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The productions of adult second language (L2) learners are often detected as having a foreign accent by native speakers of the target language. However, there is no clear answer for what kind of problems contribute to L2 learners’ foreign accent. This thesis aims to investigate potential factors behind foreign accent. We intend to achieve this goal by examining cross-linguistic empirical evidence of the L2 acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch accent by English learners. L2 prosody has been found to significantly influence native speakers’ auditory impression of foreign accent. L2 prosody also allows us to test crosslinguistic differences in the function of the key acoustic correlates of L2 contrasts. In this thesis we examine F0, which signals both lexical pitch accent and phrasal distinctions in Japanese, but which signals only phrasal distinctions, not lexical distinctions, in English. For adult L2 learners to achieve target-like productions, the literature suggests that three abilities are the key factors: 1) learners’ ability to differentiate the acoustic correlate of the target L2 contrasts, 2) ability to articulate the acoustic correlate of the target L2 contrasts and 3) ability to categorize the target L2 contrasts. This thesis evaluates all three of these potential factors. The main contribution of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive view of foreign accent, by investigating possible interactions between the factors and by examining the different abilities of the same learners. Another contribution is to provide empirical evidence for the nature of learners’ problems with foreign accent during L2 acquisition, by testing two groups of English learners of Japanese (experienced and inexperienced) in comparison with Japanese native speakers. The first experiment used intelligibility scores and overall F0 patterns to quantify the degree of foreign accent in the learners’ productions of Japanese lexical pitch accent. The second experiment showed that the learners’ ability to differentiate F0 contours in a nonspeech context was equal to that of the native speakers. The third experiment showed that the learners’ ability to articulate the F0 contours in a non-speech context differed from that of the native speakers. The fourth experiment showed that although learners were able to hear the phonetic differences between the target L2 contrasts, due to poor formation of the target L2 categories and poor lexical assignment ability, the inexperienced learners seem to have greater difficulty than experienced learners both in categorizing boundary items into the target L2 categories and in assigning the L2 categories to lexical items. Overall, the foreign accent of adult L2 learners’ productions is explained through a combination of articulation and categorization factors. Importantly, this cross-sectional study has indicated how learners’ problems with foreign accent change as they gain L2 experience. Whereas experienced learners seem to have problems mainly in the articulation and phonetic realization of the L2 contrasts, the inexperienced learners seem to have mainly problems in phonetic and lexical-phonological representations of the target L2 categories in addition to articulation and phonetic realization. This study offers both theoretical insights for the field of L2 speech acquisition research and also practical insights for the L2 classroom.
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Zitting, Rachel McPherson. "Perceptual Proficiency Ratings of Obstruent Productions in L2 Learners of English as a Function of Speech Task Type, Word Position, and Listener Expertise." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7315.
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Second language (L2) learners of English must learn to produce English phonemes, words, and sentences. These L2 learners make many errors when learning English; they may change the place or manner of articulation, insert vowels, or delete consonants. Obstruent sounds, such as fricatives, affricates, and stops, can be especially difficult for L2 learners. This study analyzed native English speakers<'> perception of the quality of obstruents produced by native Mandarin Chinese and Korean speakers. Target words containing obstruents had been produced in three different tasks: in a carrier phrase, in a paragraph, and in a spontaneous speech sample. Obstruents were produced in word-initial position and word-final position. Raters with differing levels of expertise listened to these words and rated the perceptual quality of the obstruents within the words. This study found that overall, English obstruent productions by native Mandarin and Korean L2 speakers learning English were rated most clear when produced in word-initial position in a carrier phrase or a paragraph. The lowest ratings given were of obstruents in word-final position in spontaneous speech. No significant differences were found for listener expertise level. Combined with future research, results from this study will help educate the field of second language instruction as to how the speech of Korean and Mandarin learners of English is perceived. It also provides additional information on the effect that listener expertise has on the judgment of L2 speech production.
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Stölten, Katrin. "The Effects of Age of Onset on VOT in L2 Aquisition and L1 Attrition : A Study of the Speech Production and Perception of Advanced Spanish-Swedish Bilinguals." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Centrum för tvåspråkighetsforskning, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-94887.
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This thesis explores the role of age in second language (L2) acquisition and first language (L1) attrition. The focus is on Voice Onset Time (VOT) in the production and categorical perception of word-initial L1 and L2 stops in highly advanced L1 Spanish learners of L2 Swedish. Using as the point of departure a maturational constraints perspective and the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), Study I examines the impact of age of onset (AO) of L2 acquisition on the production of L2 Swedish voiceless stops. The results show that there are AO effects even in the speech of highly advanced L2 learners and that the incidence of nativelike L2 learners is considerably lower than earlier assumed. However, conclusions like these are only possible when speaking rate is accounted for, thereby highlighting the importance of speaking rate effects on VOT as a measure of nativelikeness. Like Study I, Study II reveals age effects on the same L2 learners’ categorical perceptions of L2 Swedish stops. Moreover, after combining the results with the data from Study I, the incidence of nativelike behavior drops remarkably with no late L2 learner performing within the range of native-speaker production and perception. The results suggest that L2 acquisition of phonetic/phonological aspects is especially sensitive to AO effects. It is concluded that theories on maturational constraints, including the CPH, cannot be refuted on the basis of the present data. Study III concerns the same participants’ production and perception of L1 Spanish stops. Age of reduced contact (ARC) is identified as an important predictor for L1 attrition and retention of voiceless stop production, although not of stop perception. This discrepancy is related to different activation thresholds as proposed by the Activation Threshold Hypothesis (ATH). It is further suggested that early bilinguals are more dependent on high-frequency L1 use than late bilinguals when compensating for age effects, but only in production.At the time of doctoral defence the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Accepted. Paper 2: In press. Paper 3: Manuscript.
Age of onset and ultimate attainment in second language acquisition, The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, grant no. 1999-0383:01
First language attrition in advanced second language speakers, Swedish Research Council, grant no. 421-2004-1975
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Sousa, Lorena Azevedo de. "A ferramenta VoiceThread em uma abordagem hibrida: o desenvolvimento da produ??o oral e da capacidade de noticing na aprendizagem de ingl?s como L2." Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2014. http://repositorio.ufrn.br:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/16329.
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Previous issue date: 2014-02-17VoiceThread (VT) is a collaborative and asynchronous web 2.0 tool, which permits the creation of oral presentations with the help of images, documents, texts and voice, allowing groups of people to browse and contribute with comments using several options: voice (microphone or cell phone), text and audio-file or video (webcam) (BOTTENTUIT JUNIOR, LISB?A E COUTINHO, 2009). The hybrid experience with VoiceThread allows learners to plan their speech before recording it, without the pressure often existent in the classroom. Furthermore, the presentations can be recorded several times, enabling students to listen to them, notice the gaps in their oral production (noticing) and edit innumerous times before publishing them online. In this perspective, oral production is seen as a process of L2 acquisition, not only as practice of already existent knowledge, because it can stimulate the learner to process the language syntactically (SWAIN, 1985; 1995). In this context, this study aims to verify if there is a relation between the oral production of the learners more specifically the grammatical accuracy and the global oral grade and their noticing capacity, how the systematic practice with VoiceThread, in a hybrid approach, can impact the learners global oral development, their oral production in terms of fluency (number of words per minute), accuracy (number of errors in hundred words), and complexity (number of dependent clauses per minute), and on their noticing capacity (SCHMIDT, 1990; 1995; 2001), that is, the learner s capacity of noticing the gaps existent in their oral production. In order to answer these research questions, 49 L2 learners of English were divided into an experimental group (25 students) and a control group (24 students). The experimental group was exposed to the hybrid approach with VT during two months and, through a pre- and post-test, we verified if this systematic practice would positively influence these participants oral production and noticing capacity. These results were compared to the pre- and post-test scores from the control group, which was not exposed to VT. Finally, learners impressions in relation to the use of this tool were also sought through a questionnaire applied after the post-test. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant correlation between the learners speech production (accuracy and global oral grade) and their noticing capacity. Besides, it was verified a positive impact of VoiceThread on the learners speech production variables and on their noticing capacity. They also reveal a positive reaction by the learners in relation to the hybrid experience with this web tool
O VoiceThread ? uma ferramenta da web 2.0, colaborativa e ass?ncrona, que permite a cria??o de apresenta??es orais com aux?lio de imagens, documentos, textos e voz, possibilitando que grupos de pessoas naveguem e contribuam com coment?rios de v?rias maneiras: utilizando a voz (com microfone ou telefone), texto e arquivo de ?udio ou v?deo (webcam) (BOTTENTUIT JUNIOR, LISB?A E COUTINHO, 2009). A experi?ncia h?brida com o VoiceThread permite que o aprendiz planeje sua fala antes de grav?-la, sem a press?o geralmente existente em sala de aula. Al?m disso, as apresenta??es podem ser gravadas e regravadas v?rias vezes, possibilitando que ele se ou?a, perceba as lacunas em sua produ??o oral (noticing) e a edite in?meras vezes antes de public?-la online. Nesta perspectiva, a produ??o oral ? vista como um processo de aquisi??o de L2, e n?o apenas como pr?tica do conhecimento j? existente, por estimular o aprendiz a processar a l?ngua sintaticamente (SWAIN, 1985; 1995). Neste contexto, o presente estudo visa verificar se existe uma rela??o entre as medidas de produ??o oral dos aprendizes - mais especificamente a acur?cia gramatical e a nota global - e sua habilidade de noticing, de que forma a pr?tica sistem?tica com a ferramenta VoiceThread, em uma abordagem h?brida, impacta o desenvolvimento oral global dos aprendizes, sua produ??o oral em termos de flu?ncia (n?mero de palavras por minuto), acur?cia (quantidade de erros gramaticais a cada 100 palavras) e complexidade (n?mero de ora??es subordinadas por minuto), e a sua habilidade de noticing (SCHMIDT, 1990; 1995; 2001), ou seja, a capacidade de o aprendiz perceber as lacunas existentes na sua produ??o oral. A fim de responder a essas quest?es, 49 aprendizes de ingl?s como L2 participaram da pesquisa, divididos em grupo experimental (25 alunos) e grupo controle (24 alunos). O grupo experimental foi exposto a uma experi?ncia h?brida com o VT durante dois meses e, por meio de um pr? e um p?s-teste, verificamos se essa pr?tica sistem?tica influenciaria positivamente a produ??o oral e a habilidade de noticing destes participantes. Esses resultados foram comparados aos escores do pr? e do p?s-teste de um grupo controle, que n?o foi exposto ao VT. Por fim, as impress?es dos aprendizes a respeito da experi?ncia com a ferramenta foram analisadas por meio de question?rios aplicados ap?s o p?s-teste. Os resultados apontam que h? uma correla??o estatisticamente significativa entre as medidas de produ??o oral dos aprendizes (acur?cia gramatical e a nota global) e sua habilidade de noticing. Al?m disso, verificou-se que h? um impacto positivo da ferramenta VoiceThread sobre as vari?veis da produ??o oral dos aprendizes e sua habilidade de noticing. Por fim, a parte qualitativa desse estudo revela uma rea??o positiva dos aprendizes em rela??o ? experi?ncia h?brida com esta ferramenta
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Jevring, Cecilia. "I Perceive, Therefore I Produce? : A Study on the Perception and Production of Three English Consonantal Sounds by Swedish L2 learners." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-118450.
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This study set out to investigate the relationship between perception and production of English / tʃ, dʒ/ and / ʒ / by native speakers of Swedish learning English in secondary school. The aim was to find out if Flege’s Speech Learning Model (SLM) (1995) and Major’s Ontogeny Phylogeny Model (OPM) (2001) are suitable to describe young learners’ L2 phonological attainment. To test perception, an identification task containing Nonwords with target sounds in initial, medial, and final position was constructed and tested on 17 school students. Three speaking tasks were carried out to test the participants’ production of the phonemes in initial, medial and final position. All participants also completed a questionnaire with questions regarding exposure and motivation. Six students were chosen for deeper analysis. The results show that both the SLM and the OPM can be used to describe young learners L2 phonology acquisition. Similar sounds were found to be harder to produce and more affected by L1 transfer, which corroborates both the SLM and the OPM. Marked sounds were affected more by universals, which was suggested by the OPM. Desire to have a native accent and reported use of the L2 seems to have effect on L2 phonology acquisition, as well. However, the relationship between all these factors is complex and the results from this study are merely suggestive.
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Melnik, Gerda Ana. "Issues in L2 phonological processing." Thesis, Paris Sciences et Lettres (ComUE), 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PSLEE007/document.
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L’apprentissage d’une langue étrangère nécessite une quantité considérable de temps et d’efforts. Les apprenants doivent faire face à de nombreux défis dans cet apprentissage, dont le traitement des sons qui n'existent pas dans leur langue maternelle. La différence entre les propriétés de la langue maternelle et de la langue étrangère entraîne des distorsions dans la perception et un accent dans la production des sons non-natifs. De plus, ces difficultés persistent à tous les niveaux de traitement, car les problèmes de perception et de production d’un son influencent le traitement des mots contenant ces sons. Heureusement, la capacité à percevoir et à produire les sons de la L2 (langue seconde) s’améliore progressivement. Cette thèse porte sur le traitement phonologique de la L2 et son développement à travers les modalités (perception vs. production) et les niveaux de traitement (niveau prélexical vs. lexical). Dans la première partie de la thèse, nous étudions la relation entre la perception et la production en L2. Les résultats des études précédentes ont souvent été contradictoires et nous suggérons que plusieurs limitations méthodologiques aient pu y créer des confusions. Nous avons donc pris en compte ces limitations méthodologiques et nous avons développé un paradigme expérimental afin de tester la perception et la production du contraste français /u/-/y/ par des apprenants anglophones. Nous avons utilisé des tâches qui visent le traitement prélexical et lexical afin d'examiner si le lien entre les deux modalités, s’il en existe un, est maintenu à travers les niveaux de traitement. Les résultats ont montré que la perception et la production sont corrélées, mais uniquement au niveau prélexical. De plus, nous avons trouvé que le développement de la perception précède celui de la production car il faut d’abord bien percevoir un son non-natif afin de le produire correctement. Dans la deuxième partie, nous avons poursuivi l’étude du traitement phonologique à travers les niveaux de traitement en nous concentrant sur la perception du son anglais /h/ par des apprenants francophones. Nous avons d’abord examiné si les difficultés à percevoir ce son précédemment signalées au niveau prélexical posaient également problème au niveau lexical. De plus, nous avons examiné si l’asymétrie observée dans la production (les francophones omettent le /h/ plus souvent qu’il ne l’insèrent) était présente dans la perception. Les résultats ont révélé que les apprenants francophones ont du mal à percevoir des mots et des non-mots contenant le /h/. De plus, une performance asymétrique a été observée. Nous avons interprété ceci comme une indication que les représentations phonologiques des mots anglais contenant le /h/ sont imprécises chez les apprenants francophones. Dans un second temps, nous avons examiné si un entraînement phonétique pouvait améliorer la perception du /h/ non seulement au niveau prélexical, mais également au niveau lexical. Nous avons démontré que l’entraînement phonétique améliorait la perception du /h/ dans les deux niveaux de traitement. De plus, cet effet positif a été maintenu quatre mois après l’entraînement. Enfin, nous avons examiné si les asymétries dans la perception du /h/ au niveau lexical pouvaient s'expliquer par des asymétries au niveau prélexical. Un tel lien n’a cependant pas été observé dans les résultats. Dans l’ensemble, cette thèse démontre que les mécanismes sous-jacents au traitement de la parole en L2 sont complexes et dynamiques, et influencent ainsi la perception et la production tant à travers les modalités qu’à travers les niveaux de traitement. Enfin, des pistes pour les recherches futures, qui permettraient d’explorer davantage les liens entre ces éléments du traitement phonologique, sont proposées. Cela mènerait à une compréhension plus approfondie des processus impliqués dans l’acquisition de la L2Learning a foreign language (L2) is a difficult task, requiring considerable amounts of time and effort. One of the challenges learners must face is the processing of sounds that do not exist or are not used contrastively in their native language. The mismatch between the properties of the native language and the foreign one leads to distortions in the perception of non-native sounds and to foreign accent in their production. Moreover, these difficulties persist across levels of processing as problems in prelexical L2 sound perception and production influence the processing of words containing these sounds. Fortunately, with growing proficiency the abilities to perceive and produce L2 sounds gradually improve, although they might never attain native-like levels. This thesis focuses on L2 phonological processing and its development across modalities (perception vs. production) and across levels of processing (prelexical vs. lexical). In the first part of the thesis, we investigate the relationship between perception and production in L2. Previous literature has provided contradictory evidence as to whether perception and production develop in parallel. We hypothesized that several methodological limitations could have brought confounds in some of these previous studies. We therefore designed an experiment that addressed these methodological issues and tested proficient English learners of French on their perception and production of the French contrast /u/-/y/ that does not exist in English. We included tasks that tap into both prelexical and lexical levels of processing in order to examine whether the link between the two modalities, if any, holds across levels of processing. Results showed that perception and production were correlated, but only when tested with tasks that tap into the same level of processing. We next explored if the developments in one modality precede developments in the other and found that good perception is indeed a prerequisite for good production. In the second part of the thesis, we continue to investigate the phonological processing of L2 across levels by focusing on the perception of the English sound /h/ by intermediate to proficient French learners of English. We first studied if the poor perception of this sound previously reported at the prelexical level also causes problems at the lexical level. We also looked at whether asymmetries found in production (i.e. more deletions than insertions) are reflected in perception. The results revealed that French learners of English have difficulty in perceiving /h/-initial words and non-words at the lexical level. Moreover, an asymmetry was indeed observed in their performance, which was interpreted as an indication that French learners of English have imprecise phonological representations of /h/-initial but not of vowel-initial words. Second, we carried out a training study to test if phonetic training could improve the perception of /h/ not only at the prelexical, but at the lexical level as well. We found that the High Phonetic Variability training did improve the perception of /h/ both at the prelexical and lexical levels, and that this positive effect was retained four months after training. Finally, we examined if asymmetries in the perception of /h/ at the lexical level could be explained by asymmetries at the prelexical level. The results revealed no such relationship. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the complex and dynamic nature of the mechanisms underlying non-native speech processing and its development during learning both across modalities and across levels of processing. We discuss how future research could further explore the links between these elements of the phonological processing apparatus to get a better understanding of L2 acquisition
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Wijetunge, Sumudu Nishamani. "The Stigma of "Not Pot English" in Sri Lanka: A Study of Production of /o/ and /O/ and Implications for Instructions." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2008. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/alesl_theses/1.
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The inability to differentiate the English vowels /o/ and / O/ has become a stigmatized marker of a lower prestige and widespread dialect of Sri Lankan English. This lower prestige (LP) dialect is often referred to with the derogative phrase “Not pot English”. This study aims to investigate the production of the vowel contrast by native Sinhala speakers of English. To this end, speech samples of three adult learners were analyzed. The findings of the study are discussed according to hypotheses of the Speech Learning Model, which suggests that the existent L1 specific phonetic categories hinder the formation of new L2 sound categories. Here, sounds that are similar, but not identical to L1 sounds are considered to be the most difficult to acquire. Also, the percentage of L1 use and the age of second language acquisition seem to have influenced the production of the vowels. Finally, in order to address this pronunciation issue, an instructional framework to teach pronunciation is proposed.
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Cox, Ethan Andrew. "Second language perception of accented speech." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282887.
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The present study addresses a core issue in the study of speech perception, the question of how stable phonological representations are accessed from an inherently variable speech signal. In particular, the research investigates the perception of accented English speech by native and non-native listeners. It is known from previous research that foreign-accented speech is harder for native listeners to process than native-accented speech. The reason for this lies in not only qualities of the input (deviation from native production norms, for example) but also in qualities of the listener. Specifically, listeners' speech perception systems are tuned from an early age to pay attention to useful distinctions in the language environment but to attenuate differences which are not useful. This quality of the listeners' speech processing system suggests that in addition to being native speakers of a language or languages, we are also native listeners. However, what is a liability for native listeners (non-native input) may be a benefit for non-native listeners. When the foreign accent is derived from a single language shared between the speaker and the listener, application of native-language processing strategies to the accented input may result in more efficient processing of the input. The experiments in this dissertation address this possibility. In an experiment involving Dutch listeners processing Dutch-accented and American English-accented sentence materials, a reaction time advantage was observed for the mutually-accented materials. Experiments testing the main hypothesis with native Spanish-listening participants showed a different pattern of results. These participants, who had more experience with English overall that the Dutch participants, performed similarly to native-listening controls in displaying faster verification times for native accented materials than mutually-accented materials. These experiments lead to the conclusion that native-like listening, as assessed by the sentence verification paradigm employed in these experiments, can be achieved by non-native listeners. In particular, non-native listeners with little experience processing spoken English benefit from hearing input produced in a matching accent. Non-native listeners with sufficiently more experience processing spoken English, however, perform similar to native listeners, displaying an advantage for native accented input.
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Ghafarsamar, Reza. "Aspects of second language speech, a variationist perspective on second language acquisition." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ57041.pdf.
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暁芸, 王., and Xiaoyun Wang. "Phoneme set design for second language speech recognition." Thesis, https://doors.doshisha.ac.jp/opac/opac_link/bibid/BB13044980/?lang=0, 2017. https://doors.doshisha.ac.jp/opac/opac_link/bibid/BB13044980/?lang=0.
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本論文は第二言語話者の発話を高精度で認識するための音素セットの構成方法に関する研究結果を述べている．本論文では，第二言語話者の発話をネイティブ話者の発話とは異なる音響特徴量の頻度分布を持つ情報源とみなし，これを表現する適切な音素セットを構築する手法を提案している．具体的には，対象とする第二言語と母語との調音位置や調音様式などの類似性に加え，同音異義語の発生による単語識別性能の低下を総合した基準に基づき，最適な音素セットを決定する．提案手法を日本人学生の英語発話の音声認識に適用し，種々の条件下で認識精度の向上を検証した．This dissertation focuses on the problem caused by confused mispronunciation to improve the recognition performance of second language speech. A novel method considering integrated acoustic and linguistic features is proposed to derive a reduced phoneme set for L2 speech recognition. The customized phoneme set is created with a phonetic decision tree (PDT)-based top-down sequential splitting method that utilizes the phonological knowledge between L1 and L2. The dissertation verifies the efficacy of the proposed method for Japanese English and shows that the feasibility of building a speech recognizer with the proposed method is able to alleviate the problem caused by confused mispronunciation by second language speakers.
博士(工学)
Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering
同志社大学
Doshisha University
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Wood, David. "Formulaic language in speech fluency development in English as a second language." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/29274.
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This thesis is an investigation of the role of formulaic language in second language (L2) speech fluency development, within a cognitive and information processing framework. Fluency has been studied and defined in terms of temporal variables of speech such as rate of speech, pause frequency and distribution, and the length of fluent runs between pauses. It has been suggested by several researchers that the key to fluency in spontaneous speech is mastery of a repertoire of formulaic language sequences, multiword strings processed mentally as single words (Schmidt, 1991; Towell, Hawkins, and Bazergui, 1996; Chambers, 1998). If formulaic sequences are automatized or stored and retrieved as wholes from long term memory so as to allow longer lexical units to be produced within the limits of controlled processing (McLaughlin, Rossman, and McLeod, 1983; Kahnemann and Treismann, 1984; DeKeyser, 2001) and short term memory (Anderson, 1983; Baddeley, 1988), then they may facilitate spontaneous speech under the constraints of real time. The present study was designed to examine whether this could be so.
The study draws on a synthesis of research from three areas: fluency and its development in second language (L2) speech; formulaic language, multi-word lexical units which are stored and retrieved in long-term memory so as to be retrieved as wholes; social and cultural factors related to fluency development and formulaic language use, including first language and culture, voice, and identity. The research was interpreted in light of psycholinguistic knowledge about mental processes underlying L2 speech production, particularly the growing evidence that formulaic language sequences are fundamental to fluent language production as they allow production to occur despite the restrictions of controlled processing and the constraints of short term memory capacity.
The hypotheses which frame the research centre around the idea that increased use of formulaic language units by learners over time facilitates the development of speech fluency as measured by temporal variables such as speech rate, pause phenomena, and the length of fluent runs occurring between pauses. Specifically, it was hypothesized that, with continued learning and experience, L2 speech would exhibit a faster rate of production, a greater proportion of production time spent speaking as opposed to pausing, longer runs between pauses, and that formulaic sequences would appear more frequently in the longer runs between pauses. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Chen, Ying. "Prosodic Realization of Focus in Second Language Speech: Effects of Language Experience." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/18542.
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Prosodic focus is phonetically realized by increasing duration, F0 and intensity on the focused constituents in a sentence. In some languages, there is a concomitant compression of F0 and intensity after the focused item, referred to as post-focus compression (PFC). Southern Min is a tone language that does not have PFC, while Beijing Mandarin is a tone language that does. Like Mandarin, American English has PFC; unlike Mandarin, American English has lexical stress rather than lexical tone. The current dissertation investigated the phonetic realization of focus in second language Mandarin by Southern Min and English learners and its realization in English by Mandarin learners. Second language experience was also manipulated in each of the investigations. The findings were that younger Southern Min speakers, who used more L2 Mandarin than the mid-age and older speakers, produced substantial PFC in Mandarin. Chinese-heritage American learners, who were exposed to Mandarin earlier than non-Chinese-heritage learners, produced some PFC in Mandarin while non-Chinese-heritage learners did not produce any. Finally, Chinese students in college with longer residencies in the United States produced more PFC in English than those with shorter residencies. American English speakers were also found to have more difficulties producing contour tones compared to the high-level tone on target focused items in L2 Mandarin while Mandarin Chinese speakers had more difficulties in producing unstressed syllables compared to stressed syllables on target focused items in L2 English. Overall, the results support the Speech Learning Model prediction that similarities in L1 and L2 sound system result in difficulty acquiring L2 sounds. This may be especially true for prosody because there are interactions between word- and sentence-level patterns. The results also confirm that age of learning is especially important for native-like acquisition of an L2; however, for early learners, the amount of L2 use and length of residence in the L2-speaking environment also clearly impact the acquisition of L2 prosody. Finally, the results suggest that production of PFC in a language that requires it provides a good index of second language speech proficiency.2015-10-17
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Peleias, Fabiola D'Agostini. "Produção e percepção da fricativa interdental surda por aprendizes brasileiros de língua inglesa." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2009. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/14127.
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Previous issue date: 2009-11-06Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
This work is part of the sound acquisition area in second language (L2), specifically in English, and it aimed to investigate whether there was a relationship between production and perception of the voiceless interdental fricative pronunciation [θ] or not in a group of Brazilian native speakers (BNS), based on acoustic and phonetic analysis. It was stated that there is such a relationship on account of the BNS in the sample. According to the literature, Brazilian learners of English tend to produce the voiceless interdental fricative [θ] as [s], [f] and [t] ((LIEFF & NUNES, 1993). This is because they consider such sound to be similar to [s], [f] and [t], and as stated by Flege (1999) and Meador, Flege and MacKay (2000), similar sounds of L1 (native language, in this case, Brazilian Portuguese - BP) and L2 may cause difficulties for the learner. Three studies have been made: an analysis of the production of the 3 BNS as well as of the AMS (American Native speaker) concerning the sound [θ]; an analysis of the perception of the sound [θ] by the 3 BNS and, finally, an evaluation of the 3 BNS productions of the sound [θ] by 31 American Native judges. The results of the three analyses have been crossed, and it can be posed that they conform to the literature about the link between production and perception and the assimilation of sounds from L2 to L1. Moreover, with such results, it was possible to achieve the goal of this work. It was verified that, regarding the perception analysis, the three BNS tend to perceive the sound [θ] as [θ] or [t]. Regarding the production analysis, one of the BNS approached the ANS. Therefore, it can be stated that there is a relationship between this BNS perception and production. The two remaining BNS did not approach the ANS. Most of the time, those speakers perceived the sound [θ] as [t], and the same happened with their productions of the sound [θ]. Taking into account those figures, it can be stated that there is a relationship among their production and perception, even if they have not perceived the sound [θ] as it should have been done. The perception and production analyses results were compared with the evaluation of the 31 judges, and the same can be said concerning all BNS: one of the BNS approached the ANS concerning the sound [θ], and the two remaining ones did not approach the ANS. To sum up, it was observed that, in this particular sample, there is a relationship between their production and perception, and that two out of the three BNS assimilated the sound [θ] as [t]
Este trabalho situa-se na área de aquisição de sons de L2 (segunda língua), mais especificamente língua inglesa, e seu objetivo foi investigar se existe uma relação entre a produção e a percepção da pronúncia da fricativa interdental surda [θ] em um grupo de sujeitos nativos brasileiros, a partir da análise fonético-acústica. Defendia-se que há uma relação entre a percepção e a produção da pronúncia da fricativa interdental surda pelos sujeitos nativos brasileiros da amostra. Segundo a literatura, aprendizes brasileiros de inglês tendem a produzir a fricativa interdental surda da língua inglesa [θ] como [s], [f] e [t] (LIEFF e NUNES, 1993). Isso porque consideram que esse som é similar aos citados e, de acordo com Flege (1999) e Meador, Flege e MacKay (2000), sons similares de L1 (língua materna Português Brasileiro - PB)e L2 causam dificuldades para o aprendiz. Foram feitos três estudos: uma análise das produções dos 3 SNB (sujeitos nativos do PB) e do SNA (sujeito nativo americano) envolvendo a [θ]; uma análise de percepção do [θ] pelos 3 SNB e uma avaliação, por juízes nativo-americanos, das produções dos 3 SNB e do SNA envolvendo o [θ]. Os resultados dos estudos foram cruzados, e constatou-se que estão em consonância com a literatura sobre o vínculo entre produção e percepção e assimilação de sons em L2 para a L1, atingiram o objetivo e validaram a hipótese defendida. Os 3 SNB, no teste de percepção, tendem a perceber o som [θ], em sua maioria, como [θ] ou como [t]. No teste de produção, a SNB1 aproximou-se do SNA; para esse sujeito, há relação entre sua percepção e sua produção. Os SNB2 e SNB3 se distanciaram do SNA. Em sua maioria, perceberam os estímulos como plosiva alveolar surda [t], comportamento que também se refletiu em sua produção. Portanto, pode-se afirmar que há relação entre produção-percepção, mesmo não tendo percebido e produzido o som [θ], em sua maioria, de maneira correta. Os testes foram comparados às avaliações dos juízes norte-americanos, e o mesmo pode ser afirmado para todos os sujeitos: os estímulos do SNB1, em sua maioria, foram avaliados como fricativa interdental surda [θ], do SNB2 como plosiva alveolar surda [t] e do SNB3 também como plosiva alveolar surda [t]. Observou-se, nesta amostra, que houve a relação entre produção e percepção e que 2 entre 3 dos SNB assimilaram [θ] como [t]
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Xu, Yushi Ph D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Language technologies in speech-enabled second language learning games : from reading to dialogue." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/75652.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-244).
Second language learning has become an important societal need over the past decades. Given that the number of language teachers is far below demand, computer-aided language learning software is becoming a promising supplement to traditional classroom learning, as well as potentially enabling new opportunities for self-learning. The use of speech technologies is especially attractive to offer students unlimited chances for speaking exercises. To create helpful and intelligent speaking exercises on a computer, it is necessary for the computer to not only recognize the acoustics, but also to understand the meaning and give appropriate responses. Nevertheless, most existing speech-enabled language learning software focuses only on speech recognition and pronunciation training. Very few have emphasized exercising the student's composition and comprehension abilities and adopting language technologies to enable free-form conversation emulating a real human tutor. This thesis investigates the critical functionalities of a computer-aided language learning system, and presents a generic framework as well as various language- and domain-independent modules to enable building complex speech-based language learning systems. Four games have been designed and implemented using the framework and the modules to demonstrate their usability and flexibility, where dynamic content creation, automatic assessment, and automatic assistance are emphasized. The four games, reading, translation, question-answering and dialogue, offer different activities with gradually increasing difficulty, and involve a wide range of language processing techniques, such as language understanding, language generation, question generation, context resolution, dialogue management and user simulation. User studies with real subjects show that the systems were well received and judged to be helpful.
by Yushi Xu.
Ph.D.
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Kong, DongKwan. "Effects of Task Complexity on Second-Language Production." Thesis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/7077.
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In task-based syllabus design, task sequencing in terms of task complexity, defined by the cognitive demands imposed by the task structure itself, has been a valid candidate for an objective and prospective approach to task-based syllabus design. The present study explored the effects of task complexity on second-language production. Performance data from 30 Korean speakers with English as their L2 were examined in terms of complexity and accuracy on two tasks. The results were discussed from two perspectives: between-task and within-task effects. The between-task comparison revealed that more complex tasks elicited more complex but less accurate production. The within-task comparison also proved that more complex versions of the car tasks induced more complex but less accurate language. In the within-task comparison, task complexity interacted with proficiency and prior knowledge. Methodological limitations and suggestions for future research on task complexity are noted.xi, 86 leaves
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Williams, A. Lynn, Sharynne McLeod, and R. J. McCauley. "Direct Speech Production Interventions." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2010. https://www.amzn.com/1598570188/.
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Book Summary: With detailed discussion and invaluable video footage of 23 treatment interventions for speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children, this textbook and DVD set should be part of every speech-language pathologist's professional preparation. Focusing on children with functional or motor-based speech disorders from early childhood through the early elementary period, this textbook gives preservice SLPs critical analyses of a complete spectrum of evidence-based phonological and articulatory interventions.
This textbook fully prepares SLPs for practice with a vivid inside look at intervention techniques in action through high-quality DVD clips large and varied collection of intervention approaches with widespread use across ages, severity levels, and populations proven interventions in three categories: direct speech production, broader contexts such as perceptual intervention, and speech movements clear explanations of the evidence behind the approaches so SLPs can evaluate them accurately contributions by well-known experts in SSDs from across the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK
An essential core text for pre-service SLPs—and an important professional resource for practicing SLPs, early interventionists, and special educators—this book will help readers make the best intervention decisions for children with speech sound disorders.
Evidence-based intervention approaches—demonstrated in DVD clips—such as: minimal pairs perceptual intervention core vocabulary stimulability treatment intervention for developmental dysarthria the psycholinguistic approach
Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children is a part of the Communication and Language Intervention Series
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Lessing, Sara. "ComPron : Learning Pronunciation through Building Associations between Native Language and Second Language Speech Sounds." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Människa-datorinteraktion, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-414819.
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Current computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) tools are too focused on what technologies can do, rather than focusing on learner needs and pedagogy. They also lack an embodied perspective on learning. This thesis presents a Research through Design project exploring what kind of interactive design features can support second language learners’ pronunciation learning of segmental speech sounds with embodiment in mind. ComPron was designed: an open simulated prototype that supports learners in learning perception and production of new segmental speech sounds in a second language, by comparing them to native language speech sounds. ComProm was evaluated through think-aloud user tests and semi-structured interviews (N=4). The findings indicate that ComPron supports awareness of speech sound-movement connections, association building between sounds, and production of sounds. The design features that enabled awareness, association building, and speech sound production support are discussed and what ComPron offers in comparison to other CAPT-tools.
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Bailey, Troy D. "Spectrographic Analysis of Second Language Speech: Investigating the Effects of L1." PDXScholar, 1994. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4702.
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Technological advances in Digital Signal Processing over the last decade have provided applied linguists with a number of computerized applications for speech analysis which can be of benefit to both the researcher and the instructor. This research project explores the techniques of speech spectrography and implements methods of acoustic phonetics to current issues in Second Language Acquisition theory. Specifically, the effects of vowel production in one's native language on the targets in a second language are investigated. Acoustic measurements of English vowels spoken by Japanese students were compared with measurements of native Japanese vowels and American English vowels. In addition, these data were compared with measurements of learner speech from a variety of native language backgrounds. Vowels from both groups of non-native English speakers showed tendencies toward the center of the vowel space. The less-experienced group showed greater token-to-token variability across height parameters than across frontedness parameters while the more experienced group showed no difference for parameters. Both groups exhibited greater frontedness than height variability between speakers which can be explained in part by differences in vocal tract size. In addition, Flege's Speech Learning Model was tested. Data did not support the hypothesis that similar vowels are more difficult to produce than different vowels. ANOVA tests showed that large LI vowel inventories do not advantage learners of languages with many vowels. The results suggest that the unique qualities of L2 speech may have more to do with developmental processes than L 1 interference.
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Brown, Cynthia A. 1967. "Acquisition of segmental structure : consequences for speech perception and second language acquisition." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=34704.
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Through an investigation of the acquisition of feature geometric representations in first and second language acquisition, this dissertation demonstrates how the Feature Geometry theory contained in Universal Grammar actively guides and constrains the acquisition of segmental representations by children. In addition, it demonstrates how the mature feature geometry in a speaker's mental grammar restricts the range of nonnative phonemic contrasts that he or she will be sensitive to in the input and, hence, able to acquire as an L2 learner.Three related areas of research are explored and integrated in this work: first, a theoretical study explores the feature-geometric representation of sonorant and non-sonorant laterals, based on their behavior in a variety of phonological processes cross-linguistically, and suggests that [lateral] is not a phonological feature, but rather that laterality is a phonetic property that derives from a specific feature-geometric representation; second, an experimental study investigates the acquisition of phonemic contrasts by English children and demonstrates that segmental representations are acquired in a uniform order that is consistent with properties of Feature Geometry; finally, a series of experimental studies examines the perception and acquisition of the English /l-r/, /b-v/, /p-f/, /f-v/ and /s-theta/ contrasts by native speakers of Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Korean.
The findings from each of these studies are synthesized to obtain a comprehensive picture of how segmental representations are acquired and how this L1 knowledge impinges on the acquisition of L2 phonemes: it is argued that the monotonic acquisition of feature-geometric structure by young children restricts their sensitivity to particular non-native contrasts, and the continued operation of this existing feature geometry in adult speech perception constrains which non-native contrasts adult learners will be sensitive to in the L2 input and, therefore, capable of acquiring; the circumstances in which the native grammar facilitates perception of non-native contrasts and in which acquisition is possible are also discussed.
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Woodman, Karen. "A study of linguistic, perceptual and pedagogical change in a short-term intensive language program." Thesis, University of Victoria, 1998. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/102184/1/__qut.edu.au_Documents_StaffHome_StaffGroupW%24_woodmank_Desktop_PhDthesis.pdf.
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This study investigates linguistic, perceptual, and pedagogical change (LPPC) in a short-term, study abroad English immersion program. It proposes the LPPC Interactive Model of second language acquisition based on Gardner's 1985 socioeducational model and Woods' 1996 beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge (BAK) structure. The framework is applied in a cross-cultural context, highlighting participants in the 1993 Camosun Osaka Aoyama English Language Institute involving Japanese English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students from Aoyama Junior College in Osaka, Japan, and non-Japanese ESL teachers at Camosun College and Canada's University of Victoria in British Columbia. The study examined the definition of teacher achievement; distinctions between language activation and language acquisition in the short-term, study abroad context; development of the constructs student BAK+, teacher BAK+, and class BAK+ to describe interactions in "class fit"; and the influence of temporal parameters on linguistic, perceptual, and pedagogical change. Data from teacher and student surveys and interviews suggest that change occurs in each of the linguistic, perceptual, and pedagogical dimensions and support constructs proposed for the model.
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Kuerten, Anna Belavina. "Assessing speech production in english as a foreign language." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UFSC, 2012. http://repositorio.ufsc.br/xmlui/handle/123456789/93736.
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Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente, Florianópolis, 2010Made available in DSpace on 2012-10-25T02:54:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 281154.pdf: 791073 bytes, checksum: e30d66ee3c9be48b47c2601e0ac13178 (MD5)
Este estudo investigou os componentes da habilidade oral que são tratados nas escalas orais de dois testes de proficiência em inglês como lingual estrangeira (TOEFL e IELTS) e duas diretrizes para orientações em ensino, aprendizagem e testagem (ACTFL e CEFR). Para alcançar o objetivo do estudo, primeiramente, cada escala de produção oral foi analisada através da lista de verificação e instrumento de avaliação da habilidade comunicativa de linguagem proposta por Bachman (1995). Esta análise revelou o grau de envolvimento de cada componente da habilidade omunicativa de linguagem em todas as escalas de produção oral. As escalas de produção oral foram analisadas pelo framework para descrição do construto oral proposto por Fulcher (2003). As análises demonstraram que os componentes da habilidade das escalas do TOEFL e do IELTS são similares enquanto aquelas do ACTFL e CEFR são também muito comparáveis. Além disso, a escala oral do IELTS é mais comparável às escalas orais do ACTFL e CEFR do que à escala oral do TOEFL. Os principais resultados deste estudo podem contribuir para o melhor entendimento, por professores e estudantes, dos componentes da habilidade oral que estão presente em exames internacionais de proficiência em inglês e em diretrizes internacionais para orientações em ensino, aprendizagem e testagem.
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Wang, Costello Jingjing. "Comprehending synthetic speech personal and production influences." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2011. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/5077.
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With the increasing prevalence of voice-production technology across societies, clear comprehension while listening to synthetic speech is an obvious goal. Common human factors influences include the listener's language familiarity and age. Production factors include the speaking rate and clarity. This study investigated the speaking comprehension performance of younger and older adults who learned English as their first or second language. Presentations varied by the rate of delivery in words per minute (wpm) and in two forms, synthetic or natural speech. The results showed that younger adults had significantly higher comprehension performance than older adults. English as First Language (EFL) participants performed better than English as Second Language (ESL) participants for both younger and older adults, although the performance gap for the older adults was significantly larger than for younger adults. Younger adults performed significantly better than older adults at the slow speech rate (127 wpm), but surprisingly at the medium speech rate (188 wpm), both age groups performed similarly. Both young and older participants had better comprehension when listening to synthetic speech than natural speech. Both theoretical and design implications are provided from these findings. A cognitive diagnostic tool is proposed as a recommendation for future research.ID: 030422764; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-104).
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Psychology
Sciences
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Jooste, Nikki. "Learning through a second language : a comparative study of the performance in reading comprehension and the cognitive-linguistic processes involved in reading comprehension between first-language English learners and second-language English, first-l." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/2921.
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Munson, Benjamin. "Phonological pattern frequency and speech production in children and adults /." The Ohio State University, 2000. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu148820217119802.
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Shehadeh, Ali A. "Comprehension and performance in second language acquisition : a study of second language learners' production of modified comprehensible output." Thesis, Durham University, 1991. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1448/.
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Adams, Anne-Marie. "Phonological working memory and speech production in young children." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.283918.
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Brown, Cynthia A. "Acquisition of segmental structure, consequences for speech perception and second language acquisition." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ44371.pdf.
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Tsui, Haley May-Lai. "Ultrasound speech training for Japanese adults learning English as a second language." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/43348.
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Japanese adults learning English as a second language often have difficulty perceiving and producing English /l/ and /ɹ/ due to specific acoustic and articulatory characteristics of these speech sounds and their absence in Japanese phonology. The current study investigated the effectiveness of using two-dimensional tongue ultrasound to teach pronunciation of these sounds to six adult native Japanese speakers. Each participant had four 45-minute training sessions over a two-week period where visual feedback from ultrasound was used to support the teaching of lingual configurations for /l/ and /ɹ/ in a variety of vowel contexts and word positions. Speech samples from participants were taken prior to training and at a two-week follow-up session. All participants were rated by expert listeners as having more accurate productions of /l/ and /ɹ/ post-training, with the most accuracy seen in word-initial clusters and as word-initial segments. The lateral /l/ showed greater improvement than /ɹ/. Acoustic and visual analyses revealed frequencies and components of tongue positioning closer to native English speaker production in words perceived to be greatly improved between pre- and post-training productions. The effect of training on perception was exploratory and did not yield analyzable results. All participants gave very positive feedback regarding the use of ultrasound for speech training, as determined by a participant questionnaire. The results suggest that incorporating lingual ultrasound in speech training can be beneficial for Japanese adults learning English liquids.
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Mehnert, Uta. "The effects of pre-task planning on second-language learners speech performance." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.369107.
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Brannen, Kathleen. "Erroneous articulatory routines: A performance-based model of speech production." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/10341.
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Young children who learn a second language (L2) are able to attain native pronunciation norms. However, L2 learners beyond childhood rarely rid themselves of foreign accent. Various hypotheses and models have been offered to explain such age-related differences. Few of these explanations have addressed the issue of perception/production asymmetries. Neufeld's research has demonstrated that some older learners evidence native-like knowledge of phonological distinctions at the perceptual level, while unable to reproduce these distinctions in output. This asymmetry led him to propose his performance-based Pre- and Post-articulatory Verification model. This model assumes that, although native-like phonological representations may exist in the learner's L2 system, last-second morphophonological and phonetic adjustment may not take place because of a developmentally induced shift in focus from low- to high-level linguistic processing, i.e. to content and form. This thesis elaborates upon Neufeld's ideas by centering on articulatory realization of phonetic specifications derived in the ultimate stage of sentence planning. It is suggested that, in order to meet real-time constraints, frequent and well-practiced articulatory sequences are eventually encoded as rapidly accessible routines. These routines are packaged instructions which translate phonetic representations into articulatory goals. This extension of Neufeld's model seeks to explain much of foreign accent in adolescent and adult L2 learners as the result of entrenched erroneous motor routines.
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Patterson, Dianne Karen 1961. "Topics in acoustics, production and perception of psittacine speech." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282871.
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By examining psittacine speech (primarily from a Grey parrot, Psittacus erithacus, named Alex) in a series of two acoustic studies, two articulatory studies and one perceptual study, this dissertation demonstrates that some aspects of human language are not unique to our species. The first two studies identify frequency, intensity and durational aspects of, respectively, Alex's vowels (/i,I,e,ε,æ,ɒ,ə,o,U,u/) and stop consonants (/p,b,t,d,k,g/) that either differ from or resemble their human counterparts (primarily I. M. Pepperberg). Our results indicate that Alex produces acoustically distinct phonemes using more high frequency information than do humans. In both studies, we use acoustic data to make predictions about articulation. We also compare Alex's speech to that of a mynah, and conclude that these species use different mechanisms to produce speech. The third and fourth study examine vowel articulation: The third study, an X-ray videotape analysis, establishes that Alex configures his vocal tract in distinct ways for /i/ and /ɒ/. The fourth study models more than 2800 Grey parrot vocal tract shapes as conjoined tubes with known area functions and calculates associated vowel formants. The relationship between these mathematical models and formant values for /i,I,e,ε,æ,ɒ,ə,o,U,u/ is consistent with findings from the vowel study, X-ray study, Grese's unpubl. data and personal observations of relationships between Alex's vocal tract configurations and vowel production. The third and fourth studies show that Alex's "phonemes" are articulatorily distinct. The fifth study is perceptual and examines the relationship between acoustic characteristics of psittacine vowels and the accuracy with which listeners perceive them. We find evidence that Alex's acoustically least "human" vowel, /i/, is very difficult for listeners to perceive unless they have substantial exposure to Alex (on the order of several months). More acoustically prototypical vowels, like /ɒ/, are accurately identified even by less experienced listeners. We thus find that, at least for experienced listeners, Alex's "phonemes" are perceptually distinct. In sum, the dissertation provides acoustic, articulatory and perceptual evidence of phonemes and other phonetic structure in the speech of a psittacid.
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Schmitz, Judith 1984. "On the relationship between native and non-native speech perception and speech production." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/456304.
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Models of speech perception differ in the nature of the relationship between speech perception and production. Whether speech perception and production processes are based on a common representations ̶ the articulatory gesture ̶ or speech perception fundamentally operates on the acoustic code is highly debated. In three experimental studies, we investigated the nature of the relationship between speech perception and production. In the first study we found an active role of the speech production system in speech perception, even when listening to unfamiliar phonemes. In the second study we found no influence of a somatosensory manipulation applied to an articulator in passive speech perception. In the third study we showed that speech perception and production abilities are tightly related across phonological processes (sub-lexical and lexical) and participants’ languages (native ̶ L1 ̶and second language ̶ L2 ̶). The results suggest that speech perception and production are intimately linked.Los modelos de la percepción del habla difieren sobre la naturaleza de la relación entre la percepción y la producción del habla. El debate se centra en si ambos procesos comparten como representación básica los gestos articulatorios o bien si la percepción del habla se basa en el código auditivo. Investigamos la naturaleza de la relación entre la percepción y producción del habla en tres estudios experimentales. El primer estudio mostró que el sistema de producción del habla participa activamente en la percepción. El segundo estudio no reveló influencias en la percepción pasiva del habla de una manipulación somatosensorial aplicada en un articulador. El tercer estudio mostró una fuerte relación entre las habilidades de la percepción y producción del habla en varios procesos fonológicos (sub-léxicos y léxicos) y lenguas conocidas por los participantes (primera y segunda lenguas). Los resultados sugieren que la percepción y producción del habla están íntimamente relacionadas.
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Higgins, Janet M. D. "Facilitating listening in second language classrooms through the manipulation of temporal variables." Thesis, University of Kent, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.282589.
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Radhakrishnan, Sreedivya. "Perception of synthetic vowels by monolingual and bilingual Malayalam speakers." [Kent, Ohio] : Kent State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=kent1258953613.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2009.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 17, 2010). Advisor: John Hawks. Keywords: Speech perception; Vowels; Malayalam; Second Language. Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-216).
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Kennedy, Sara 1973. "Second language learner speech and intelligibility : instruction and environment in a university setting." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=115651.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in the pronunciation and intelligibility of instructed and uninstructed second language (L2) learners over time, and to identify instructional, environmental, and methodological factors playing a role in pronunciation and intelligibility.Seventeen L2 graduate students at an English-medium university recorded three personal anecdotes over five months. The students also regularly logged their exposure to and use of English. Nine of the students (instructed group) were concurrently taking an oral communication course focussing on suprasegmental pronunciation. Classroom instruction was regularly observed and recorded. All 17 students were interviewed at the end of the study.
L1 listeners heard anecdotes from three instructed and three uninstructed students, matched for length of residence and first language (L1). Listeners also heard anecdotes from four L1 English speakers. One group of listeners retold each anecdote after hearing it (discourse-level task). The other group paused the recording of each anecdote whenever a word was unclear (word-level task). Each group of listeners also rated excerpts for accentedness, comprehensibility, and fluency.
Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that: (a) no unambiguous changes in the pronunciation or intelligibility of either L2 learner group occurred over time; (b) word-level intelligibility measures more consistently differentiated L1 and L2 groups, and the instructed and uninstructed L2 groups; (c) compared to the instructed group, the uninstructed group logged relatively more English exposure/use for academic activities and relatively less for interactive social activities; (d) many instructed L2 learners did not believe that their pronunciation had noticeably improved, but almost all expressed satisfaction with their ability to communicate in English; (e) at the end of the study, many uninstructed learners reported persistent difficulties in communicating in English.
The results suggest that instruction in suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation sometimes may not lead to improved intelligibility or pronunciation. In addition, some L2 learners can be as intelligible as L1 speakers, depending on the listening task. Finally, results suggest that L2 learners' perceptions of their communicative ability and their patterns of L2 exposure/use are related. Implications for university preparation and support programs for L2 graduate students are discussed.
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Deschamps, Isabelle. "Phonological processing: Insights from sonority differences during speech perception and production." Thesis, McGill University, 2013. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=119346.
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Phonology represents the building blocks of language as it determines which sounds (or patterns of sounds) are meaningful in specific languages, as well as how speakers interpret these sounds. During speech production, phonology also dictates how specific sounds are produced in specific contexts. Phonological processing is thus a crucial component of both speech perception and speech production. Despite the importance of phonological processes to speech perception and speech production, their underlying mechanisms and their neural architecture have not yet been fully specified. This gap in knowledge can be attributed to the complexity associated with phonological processing, which can be influenced by different factors (e.g. types of stimulus (words, pseudowords, nonwords), modality of stimulus presentation (auditory, orthographic) and task demands (passive, active)). In addition, given the large number of potential independent factors, experimental design considerations are critical to ensure that the processes under investigation are representative of phonology. While previous research on phonological processing during speech perception and speech production has identified a broad array of brain regions sensitive to phonological manipulations or their representations, the specific contributions of these regions remain unclear. In order to couple aspects of phonological processing to specific brain regions, three complementary studies were conducted using behavioural measures and functional neuroimaging. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), stimulus modality (e.g. auditory, orthographic), task demands (passive speech perception, speech production) and phonological complexity were manipulated to profile the underlying phonological processing architecture common to speech perception and speech production. The results revealed that the most prominent neural processing differences associated with the manipulation of phonological complexity and stimulus modality occurred during speech production rather than speech perception. Brain areas associated with the task variables and sensitive to phonological complexity included the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFGpo), during both speech perception and speech production, and regions along the superior temporal plane during speech production. An unexpected finding was the lack of sensitivity of the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), a region that has been previously associated with phonological processing, to phonological complexity. To clarify the role of the SMG in phonological processing two transcranial magnetic stimulation studies were conducted. Subjects were tested on a same/different judgment task to assess phonological processing and an n-back verbal task to assess verbal working memory. The results of the two experiments confirmed that the SMG is involved in verbal working memory, a more domain-general process, but not in the encoding of phonological information. Altogether, the results from these experiments reflect on a number of important component processes that contribute to or integrate with phonological processing during speech perception and speech production. This information will add to the depth of knowledge needed to further develop current linguistic and psycholinguistic models of language and contribute to our understanding of how phonological units are represented and processed at the neural level.La phonologie englobe les principes qui régissent l'apparition et la fonction des sons qui sont particuliers à une langue. Plus précisément, la phonologie dicte quels sons sont pertinents et la manière dont ces sons sont interprétés à l'intérieur d'un système langagier spécifique. La phonologie est non seulement importante lors de la compréhension de la parole, mais elle l'est tout aussi lors de sa production. Le traitement phonologique est donc un processus indispensable lors de la perception et la production de la parole. Malgré l'importance du traitement phonologique lors de la perception et la production de la parole, d'importantes lacunes quant aux mécanismes et à l'architecture du réseau neuronal sous-jacents existent. Ce manque de connaissances peut être attribué en partie au fait que le traitement phonologique est un processus complexe qui englobe plusieurs composantes et processus. De plus, plusieurs facteurs comme le type de stimuli (mots, pseudomots, nonmots), la modalité de présentation (auditive, visuelle) ainsi que le type de tâche utilisé (passive, active) peuvent influencer le traitement phonologique. Considérant que des études antérieures sur le traitement phonologique ont identifié un réseau neuronal incluant plusieurs régions lors de tâches visant à isoler différentes composantes phonologiques, de plus amples données expérimentales sont requises afin de discerner la fonction spécifique d'une région. Afin d'étudier plus en profondeur l'architecture neuronale du traitement phonologique, trois expériences furent créées. Des mesures comportementales ainsi que des techniques d'imagerie neurofonctionelle complémentaires furent utilisées. À l'aide de l'imagerie par résonance magnétique (IRMf), l'effet de la modalité de présentation des stimuli (auditive, orthographique) ainsi que l'effet de tâches (perception de la parole passive, production de la parole) furent mesurés. De plus, un métrique de complexité phonologique fût utilisé afin de manipuler la difficulté du traitement phonologique. Les résultats de cette première étude démontrent que le type de tâche utilisé influence différemment le traitement phonologique lorsque les stimuli sont présentés de manière auditive ou orthographique. Pour être plus précis, la modalité de présentation des stimuli a un plus gros impact sur les différences observées lors du traitement phonologique lorsqu'il n'y a pas de tâche concrète. En autre, la région postérieure du gyrus inférieur frontal fût la seule aire corticale sensible à la manipulation phonologique lors des tâches de perception et de production. Néanmoins, d'autres aires situées dans le cortex temporal supérieur démontrèrent une sensibilité à la manipulation phonologique. Un résultat quelque peu inattendu fût l'absence de sensibilité du gyrus supramarginal (SMG) lors de la manipulation phonologique. Dans le but d'explorer plus en profondeur le rôle de cette région, une région typiquement associée au traitement phonologique, deux expériences de stimulation magnétique transcranienne furent effectuées. Plus précisément, ces expériences explorèrent la contribution du SMG lors de tâches de mémoire verbale et de tâches de discrimination. Les résultats démontrèrent que le SMG est une aire corticale recrutée lors de tâches de mémoire verbale mais ne participe pas au traitement phonologique. En somme, les résultats de ces trois expériences démontrent qu'afin de pouvoir caractériser les différentes composantes du traitement phonologique lors de la perception et la production de la parole, il faut comprendre et déterminer l'effet qu'ont certains facteurs spécifiques sur l'information phonologique. Ces connaissances sont primordiales afin de pouvoir développer des modèles linguistiques et psycholinguistiques du traitement phonologique.
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Gardner, Christine Elaine. "The Effect of First Language Dialect Vowel Mergers on Second Language Perception and Production." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2010. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2158.
Full textAbstract:
Previous second language (L2) acquisition research has assumed that L2 learners from a common first language (L1) have the same problems in an L2, ignoring the potential impact of a speaker's L1 dialect on L2 acquisition. This study examines the effects of L1 dialect on the acquisition of L2 German vowels. In particular, this thesis investigates two questions: 1) Do speakers from L1 dialects with vowel mergers perceive or produce vowel contrasts in the L1 and/or L2 differently than speakers from dialect areas without the same mergers? and 2) Are subjects' patterns of L1 perception or production paralleled in the L2? This thesis focuses on the vowel contrasts "pin"-"pen," "fail"-"fell," and "pool"-"pull"-"pole," which are merged (i.e., neutralized) in some environments in the Mississippi dialect, such that words like "him" and "hem" are heard or produced as the same word. Two groups of subjects participated: students from The University of Mississippi (the merging group) and students from Brigham Young University (BYU) (the non-merging group). Subjects completed a perceptual task and a production task. The perception task was a forced-choice identification task in which subjects heard English and German words and indicated which word they heard. In the production task, subjects read aloud German and English sentences. Results indicate that BYU subjects were significantly better than UMiss subjects at perceiving many vowel contrasts in English and German. Additionally, some perceptual patterns seemed to transfer to the L2, e.g., /ɪn/ and /ɛn/, were identified with similar accuracy in English and in German. In production, the groups differed significantly from each other in their production of many vowel contrasts, while acoustic analysis found no production mergers for either group in English or German. In two case studies, perception results and production results (as found by native speaker judgments), showed that vowel contrasts merged in English were also problematic in L2 German, though the problematic vowel was not necessarily the same. In sum, the UMiss speakers with mergers in their L1 dialect appeared to face different challenges than the BYU speakers when perceiving and producing German vowel contrasts. Results have implications for the L2 classroom and L2 research, suggesting that instructors may need different teaching strategies for speakers from merging dialects.