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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Speaker variation'
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Ulrich, Natalja. "Linguistic and speaker variation in Russian fricatives." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Lyon 2, 2022. http://www.theses.fr/2022LYO20031.
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Cette thèse présente une investigation acoustico-phonétique des détails phonétiques des fricatives russes.L'objectif principal était de détecter des corrélats acoustiques porteurs d'infor- mations linguistiques et idiosyncrasiques. Les questions abordées étaient de savoir si le lieu d'articulation, le sexe du locuteur ou son identité peuvent être prédits par des indices acoustiques et quelles mesures acoustiques représentent les indicateurs les plus fiables. En outre, la distribution des caractéristiques spécifiques au locuteur et à la variation inter et intra locuteur à travers les indices acoustiques a été étudiée plus en détail. Le projet a commencé par la création d'une grande base de données audio des fricatives russes. Des enregistrements acoustiques ont été obtenus auprès de 59 locuteurs russes natifs. Le jeu de données résultant est composé de 22 561 occurrences comprenant les fricatives [f], [s], [ʃ], [x], [v], [z], [ʒ], [sj], [ɕ], [vʲ], [zʲ]. Deux analyses ont été menées à partir de cette base de données. Dans la première étude, un échantillon de données de 6320 occurrences (40 locuteurs) a été utilisé. Trois techniques d'extraction acoustisque (à partir du son complet, de la durée du bruit et des fenêtres centrales de 30 ms) ont été sollicitées pour extraire des mesures temporelles et spectrales. En outre, 13 coefficients cepstraux (Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients, MFCC) ont été calculés à partir de la fenêtre centrale de 30 ms. Des classificateurs fondés sur des arbres de décision simples, des forêts aléatoires, des machines à vecteurs de support (Support-vector machine, SVM) et des réseaux neuronaux ont été entraînés et testés pour distinguer trois fricatives non palatalisées [f], [s] etThis thesis represents an acoustic-phonetic investigation of phonetic details in Russian fricatives. The main aim was to detect acoustic correlates that carry linguistic and idiosyncratic information. The questions addressed were whether the place of articulation, speakers' gender and ID can be predicted by a set of acoustic cues and which acoustic measures represent the most reliable indicators. Furthermore, the distribution of speaker-specific characteristics and inter- and intra-speaker variation across acoustic cues were studied in more detail.The project started with the generation of a large audio database of Russian fricatives. Then, two follow-up analyses were conducted. Acoustic recordings were collected from 59 native Russian speakers. The resulting dataset consists of 22,561 tokens including the fricatives [f], [s], [ʃ], [x], [v], [z], [ʒ], [sj], [ɕ], [vʲ], [zʲ].The first study employed a data sample of 6320 tokens (from 40 speakers). Temporal and spectral measurements were extracted using three acoustic cue extraction techniques (full sound, the noise part, and the middle 30ms windows). Furthermore, 13 Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients were computed from the middle 30ms window.Classifiers based on single decision trees, random forests, support vector machines, and neural networks were trained and tested to distinguish between the three non-palatalized fricatives [f], [s] and [ʃ].The results demonstrate that machine learning techniques are very successful at classifying the Russian voiceless non-palatalized fricatives [f], [s] and [ʃ] by using the centre of gravity and the spectral spread irrespective of contextual and speaker variation. The three acoustic cue extraction techniques performed similarly in terms of classification accuracy (93% and 99%), but the spectral measurements extracted from the noise parts resulted in slightly better accuracy. Furthermore, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients show marginally higher predictive power over spectral cues (< 2%).This suggests that both spectral measures and Mel Frequency Cepstral provide sufficient information for the classification of these fricatives and their choice depends on the particular research question or application. The second study's dataset consists of 15812 tokens (59 speakers) that contain [f], [s], [ʃ], [x], [v], [z], [ʒ], [sj], [ɕ]. As in the first study, two types of acoustic cues were extracted including 11 acoustic speech features (spectral cues, duration and HNR measures) and 13 Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients. Classifiers based on single decision trees and random forests were trained and tested to predict speakers' gender and ID
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Whitehead, Douglas Fraser. "Phonation types and speaker variation in Ningbo Chinese /." View abstract or full-text, 2007. http://library.ust.hk/cgi/db/thesis.pl?HUMA%202007%20WHITEH.
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Sangster, Catherine M. "Inter- and intra-speaker variation in Liverpool English : a sociophonetic study." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2002. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6d5cbd34-73ab-4c22-b341-9253eac94b3c.
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This thesis presents experiments and interviews which investigate pronunciation variation in the Liverpool accents of young speakers. Experiment One investigates inter-speaker variation, Experiment Two investigates intra-speaker variation, and Experiment Three investigates both inter- and intra-speaker variation. These three experiments are conducted from a sociophonetic perspective, with controlled elicitation of natural speech and acoustic analysis of speech data. The experimental investigations are complemented by interviews, which incorporate the perceptions and opinions of speakers of Liverpool English into the study. The study makes several contributions to the field of sociolinguistic research. It provides a new examination of Liverpool English. Experiment One is specifically designed to explore one of its most complex and ill-defined phonetic features, the realisation of plosives as affricates or fricatives. In addition to this phonetic investigation, Experiment One also examines sociolinguistic variation in this feature, and shows that speakers' individual attributes (such as their social networks and their plans for the future) are as relevant to variation as their socio-economic status. The study also makes important methodological contributions. Instrumental phonetic techniques and standards are successfully applied to sociolinguistic investigation conducted in the field. An interdisciplinary approach, bringing together qualitative interviews and sociophonetic experiments, is adopted. A new quiz-questionnaire technique for data collection, which should prove useful for many kinds of future sociolinguistic research, is developed for Experiment Three. Finally, Experiment Three tests many accounts and models of intra-speaker variation. Speakers are shown to vary their pronunciation as the speech situation varies, but not all the seven phonetic variables investigated show the same patterns of variation. Speakers vary their pronunciation according to audience, and also according to topic. Speakers with a high level of ambition vary their pronunciation of certain phonetic variables more than those with a lower level of ambition, and female speakers vary their pronunciation more than male speakers.
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McLaren, Mitchell Leigh. "Improving automatic speaker verification using SVM techniques." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2009. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/32063/1/Mitchell_McLaren_Thesis.pdf.
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Automatic recognition of people is an active field of research with important forensic and security applications. In these applications, it is not always possible for the subject to be in close proximity to the system. Voice represents a human behavioural trait which can be used to recognise people in such situations. Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) is the process of verifying a persons identity through the analysis of their speech and enables recognition of a subject at a distance over a telephone channel { wired or wireless. A significant amount of research has focussed on the application of Gaussian mixture model (GMM) techniques to speaker verification systems providing state-of-the-art performance. GMM's are a type of generative classifier trained to model the probability distribution of the features used to represent a speaker. Recently introduced to the field of ASV research is the support vector machine (SVM). An SVM is a discriminative classifier requiring examples from both positive and negative classes to train a speaker model. The SVM is based on margin maximisation whereby a hyperplane attempts to separate classes in a high dimensional space. SVMs applied to the task of speaker verification have shown high potential, particularly when used to complement current GMM-based techniques in hybrid systems. This work aims to improve the performance of ASV systems using novel and innovative SVM-based techniques. Research was divided into three main themes: session variability compensation for SVMs; unsupervised model adaptation; and impostor dataset selection. The first theme investigated the differences between the GMM and SVM domains for the modelling of session variability | an aspect crucial for robust speaker verification. Techniques developed to improve the robustness of GMMbased classification were shown to bring about similar benefits to discriminative SVM classification through their integration in the hybrid GMM mean supervector SVM classifier. Further, the domains for the modelling of session variation were contrasted to find a number of common factors, however, the SVM-domain consistently provided marginally better session variation compensation. Minimal complementary information was found between the techniques due to the similarities in how they achieved their objectives. The second theme saw the proposal of a novel model for the purpose of session variation compensation in ASV systems. Continuous progressive model adaptation attempts to improve speaker models by retraining them after exploiting all encountered test utterances during normal use of the system. The introduction of the weight-based factor analysis model provided significant performance improvements of over 60% in an unsupervised scenario. SVM-based classification was then integrated into the progressive system providing further benefits in performance over the GMM counterpart. Analysis demonstrated that SVMs also hold several beneficial characteristics to the task of unsupervised model adaptation prompting further research in the area. In pursuing the final theme, an innovative background dataset selection technique was developed. This technique selects the most appropriate subset of examples from a large and diverse set of candidate impostor observations for use as the SVM background by exploiting the SVM training process. This selection was performed on a per-observation basis so as to overcome the shortcoming of the traditional heuristic-based approach to dataset selection. Results demonstrate the approach to provide performance improvements over both the use of the complete candidate dataset and the best heuristically-selected dataset whilst being only a fraction of the size. The refined dataset was also shown to generalise well to unseen corpora and be highly applicable to the selection of impostor cohorts required in alternate techniques for speaker verification.
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Connolly, Patrick. "Speaker engagement in language variation and change with specific reference to north Tyrone." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.602472.
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This thesis examines the speaker's engagement in processes language variation and change. It specifically focuses on the dialect spoken in the North Tyrone area, a variety which has hithel10 received very little scholarly attention. 'Engagement' is these processes is considered as the extent to which speakers are aware of the social meaning which is associated with cel1ain variants and how this influences patterns of usage. In so doing, this thesis adopts a broadly 'third wave' approach to sociolinguistic variation. Making use of datasets from 1973 and 2012, this study provides detailed examinations of three variables, which each, to varying degrees, are traditionally associated with stigmatised meanings. Investigations of the patterning of these features in real and apparent time demonstrate that the traditional variants all appear generally to be on the decline. The thesis argues that women, who use these features relatively infrequently in both the 1973 and 2012 datasets, have taken the lead in this decline. This thesis argues that the decline in the use of these features has come about as a result of an increasing awareness of their stigmatised meanings. The thesis makes reference to a number of social developments which have taken place in North Tyrone in the time period under investigation which could have led to the greater stigmatisation of these features. This thesis presents statistics which demonstrate that the communities which populate North Tyrone have evolved in the time period under investigation. Where in the 1970s, the area was populated primarily by closed, tightly-knit communities, it has now become an area where open, looser-knit communities are much more prevalent. This appears to have had an effect on how these features are perceived by North Tyrone residents. The thesis also presents the results of an experiment which aims to quantify the degree to which these features are stigmatised among North Tyrone residents.
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Landsman, David Maurice. "Theories of diglossia, linguistic variation and speaker attitudes, with special reference to recent developments in Modern Greek." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.315932.
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Marquina, Zarauza Montserrat. "Estudio fonético-acústico de la variación inter e intrahablante de hablantes bilingües de catalán y de castellano." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/398981.
Full textAbstract:
La presente investigación pretende contribuir a establecer la individualidad del habla de
los hablantes bilingües de catalán y de castellano a partir del análisis de los parámetros
fonético-acústicos analizados habitualmente en la práctica de la comparación forense de
habla y estudiar los efectos, en el nivel acústico, que el uso de una lengua u otra produce
en estos parámetros. Por lo tanto, se pretende proporcionar a los especialistas en
fonética forense nuevos datos fonético-acústicos para que puedan comparar con un
mayor grado de certeza muestras de habla dubitadas e indubitadas en distintas lenguas.La recerca que es presenta vol contribuir a establir la individualitat de la parla dels parlants bilingües de català i de castellà a partir de l’anàlisi dels paràmetres foneticoacústics analitzats habitualment en la pràctica de la comparació forense de parla i estudiar els efectes, en el nivell acústic, que l’ús d’una llengua o l’altra provoca en aquests paràmetres. Per tant, es vol dotar els especialistes en fonètica forense de dades foneticoacústiques noves que els permetin comparar, amb un grau més elevat de certesa, mostres de parla dubitades i indubitades en llengües diferents.
This research aims to contribute to establish the individuality of the speech of bilingual speakers in Catalan and Spanish from the analysis of acoustic-phonetic parameters commonly analyzed in the practice of forensic speech comparison and to study the effects, on the acoustic level, that the use of one language or the other produces in these parameters. Therefore, it tries to provide new acoustic-phonetic data for specialists in forensic phonetics to be compared with a greater degree of certainly known and unknown speech samples in different languages.
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Domange, Raphaël. "Proficiency, language use and the debate over nativeness : A sociolinguistic survey of South Delhi English." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-64998.
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This study examines the extent of the impact of proficiency and language use on sociophonetic variation in Indian English (IE). It is based on an oral corpus using the methods and tools of the PAC project and derived from a pool of South Delhi-based highly proficient speakers. The investigation was conducted using quantitative and qualitative methods and focused on two understudied variables: (1) the fricative realisation of th, and (2) the realisations of the vowels in words of the NORTH and FORCE lexical sets. First, the results demonstrate that a significant amount of variation which cannot be accounted for by the traditional age, gender and social class factors can be explained by the language use parameter. A degree of correlation was found between the volume of use of English in a range of domains, and how speakers take advantage of the sociolinguistic potential of prestigious forms. This offers indications on the location of the leaders of the linguistic change. The second central feature of this study is derived from the investigation of the NORTH versus FORCE distinction. It is argued that the general maintenance of this distinction in IE provides evidence for the endo-normative nature of this variety. In the light of these findings, issues ultimately relating to the debate over nativeness are discussed.
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Malan, Roxanne. "Syllabic tone variation by Sepedi speakers with dysarthia." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/60384.
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Background: Speech production in Bantu languages places great demands on
neuromotor control, because unique speech motor behaviours such as syllabic tone
variation and the aspiration of speech sounds require an additional level of vocal fold
control compared to speech production in Germanic languages. As these motor
behaviours play an important role in differentiating the meaning of words (Van der
Merwe & Le Roux, 2014a), neuromotor speech disorders such as dysarthria may have
a greater impact on communication in Bantu languages than in Germanic languages.
The focus of this study was on syllabic tone variation in Bantu language speakers with
dysarthria compared to typical speakers. Sepedi was the Bantu language investigated.
Syllabic tone variation refers to pitch level changes for every syllable of words in a
tone language (Zerbian & Barnard, 2008a) and requires manipulation of vocal fold
length and mass over and above the voicing or devoicing of sounds within words.
These pitch changes convey the lexical and grammatical meaning of words and may
differentiate between the meanings of two orthographically identical words (Zerbian &
Barnard, 2008a). Studies on lexical tone variation in speakers with dysarthria to date
have focused mostly on the tone languages of Asia and Scandinavia (Kadyamusuma,
De Blesser, & Mayer, 2011). No studies of tone variation in Bantu language speakers
with dysarthria were found. Furthermore, past research only regarded tone variation
in monosyllabic words, with no reference to how tone would be affected across
bisyllabic words and within each of the two syllables of these words. No inquiries were
made into the tone variation ability of speakers with dysarthria when producing short
utterances compared to longer utterances and mostly speakers with congenital
dysarthria were used as research participants. These shortcomings needed to be
addressed to gain a more holistic and accurate view of the extent to which tone
variation is a challenge for Bantu language speakers with dysarthria.
Aims: The first aim of the study was to determine whether a difference exists between
typical Sepedi speakers and Sepedi speakers with dysarthria, in their ability to vary
tone across CVCV words with a HL tone pattern. The second aim of the study was to
determine whether a difference in tone variation exists between short and longer
utterances in typical Sepedi speakers and Sepedi speakers with dysarthria. Method: A quasi-experimental, between-group comparison was used in the study.
Speech samples were obtained from a control group of five typical Sepedi speakers
and from an experimental group of four Sepedi speakers with dysarthria. These
speech samples consisted of 20 consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV) words
with high-low (HL) tone variation produced in three- and also in six- /seven-syllable
utterances (resulting in a total of 40 words). The speech samples were analysed
acoustically using Praat software. To achieve the first aim, the following acoustic
measures were obtained from the 40 words produced by participants: (1) Mean
fundamental frequency (F0) of syllable 1 (S1) and syllable 2 (S2), (2) Change in F0
across words from the highest F0 point of S1 to the lowest F0 point of S2, (3) Intrasyllabic
change in F0 within S1 and S2. To achieve the second aim of the study, the
change in F0 across words in short utterances was compared to the change in F0
across words in longer utterances for the typical speakers and speakers with
dysarthria.
Results: Wilcoxon rank tests were used for statistical analyses. Descriptive statistics
were performed and median values were used to achieve research aims. All of the
control participants and participants with dysarthria produced S1 with a higher mean
F0 than S2, as was appropriate for the HL tone pattern ascribed to the target words.
For most of the individuals from both groups, the mean F0 of S1 was significantly
higher than the mean F0 of S2. However, one participant from each group produced
an insignificant difference between the mean F0 values of the two syllables. The control
group produced slightly greater median F0 changes across the words and within S1
than the dysarthria group, but the differences between the speaker groups for the
change in F0 across words and the change in F0 within S1 were insignificant. In
contrast to this, the control group produced a significantly smaller median change in
F0 within S2 than the dysarthria group. Individual speakers from both groups produced
unique patterns of F0 changes for all aspects of tone variation (change in F0 across
words and changes in F0 within S1 and S2). Both speaker groups produced a
significantly greater median change in F0 across words in short utterances compared
to long utterances. The difference in the change in F0 across words between short and
long utterances was significantly greater for the control group than for the dysarthria
group. Conclusions: The speakers with dysarthria in the study maintained the ability to vary
tone across bisyllabic words with an HL tone pattern. The dysarthria group only
differed significantly from the control group with regard to the extent of tone reduction
in the second syllable. This finding may point to possible difficulties in the required
graded relaxation of the vocal folds. Individual differences in F0 changes were found
for both typical speakers and speakers with dysarthria, indicating that unique tone
variation patterns may normally exist for all speakers. For both control and dysarthria
groups, greater tone variation was observed in short compared to longer utterances.
The role of increased utterance length in decreased F0 variation was greater for the
typical speakers than for the individuals with dysarthria.Dissertation (M Communication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2016.
Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
M Communication Pathology
Unrestricted
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Alshahwan, Majid. "Speech characteristics of Arabic speakers : dialect variations." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13296/.
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Arabic is spoken by more than 280 million people around the world and has been subject to attention in a number of acoustic phonetic studies. However, there are a limited number of studies on Gulf Arabic dialects and the majority of these studies have focused mainly on male speakers. Therefore, this study aimed to explore two Gulf Arabic dialects, the central Najdi dialect from Saudi Arabia and the Bahraini Bahraini dialect from Bahrain. It aimed to establish normative data for the Diadochokinetic Rate (DDK), Voice Onset Time (VOT), Fundamental Frequency (F0) and Formant Frequencies (F1-F3) for male (n = 40) and female (n = 40) speakers from both dialects. Furthermore, it aimed to investigate whether there are differences between the two dialects. Another direction of the research was to examine whether differences between male and female speech will be evident in both dialects. The study was accomplished using different stimuli where the monosyllables /ba, da, ga/ and a multisyllabic sequence /badaga/ were selected to analyse the DDK rates. VOT duration was examined in monosyllablic minimal pair words containing the initial voiced stops /b, d/ and the three long vowels /a:, i:, u:/, and in words containing the initial voiceless stops /t, k/, initial voiced/voiceless stops /d, t/ and plain/emphatic alveolar stops /t, t*/ and the two long vowels /i:, u:/. F0 was examined in the sustained phonation of the /a, i, u/, vowels in the words presented earlier and in sentences from the Arabic version of “The North Wind and the Sun” (Thelwall & Sa’Adeddin, 1990) and two verses from the first chapter of the Quran. F1, F2 and F3 values were examined in the sustained phonation of individual vowels and in vowels in the words described earlier. Acoustic analysis was carried out by using Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). A series of mixed model ANOVAs were performed to investigate dialect and sex differences for each of the parameters. Dialect and sex were the main independent variables; however, additional variables were assessed (syllable type, voicing, vowel context, place of articulation and emphasis). The first aim has been met, with normative data being established for males and females from both dialects. The results showed that for each of the parameters (DDK, VOT, F0 and formant frequencies), the dialect differences as well as the degree of differences were dependent on the stimuli type. Furthermore, sex differences were apparent for F0, F1, F2 and F3 where males had lower frequencies than females in all tasks. In addition, the results showed that females had longer VOT durations than males for voiceless stops; and in the initial emphatic /t≥/ context; males had longer VOT duration than females. However, there were no differences between male and female speakers with regard to the DDK rates, and in the VOT analysis, initial voiced stops did not show an effect for dialect and sex. Furthermore, the impact of other variables other than dialect and sex are discussed. In conclusion, dialect, and to a lesser extent, sex differences in the Arabic dialects under study, are dependent on the stimulus type. The study also showed that emphatic /t*/ might help in differentiating between different Arabic dialects.
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Akpossan, Johanne. "La consonne /R/ comme indice de la variation lectale : cas du français en contact avec le créole guadeloupéen." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015PA030010/document.
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Cette thèse a pour objectif de définir l’apport de la phonétique expérimentale dans l’identification d’une variété lectale, en prenant pour exemple les langues parlées en Guadeloupe. En Guadeloupe, deux langues cohabitent : le français et le créole. Mais, dans les faits, il y a une diversité de variétés de français d’une part, et de créole d’autre part. Chacune de ces variétés va de l’acrolecte au basilecte en passant par le mésolecte : il y a donc un continuum français et un continuum créole. La situation sociolinguistique de la Guadeloupe peut être ainsi représentée par un double continuum.Ces différentes variétés de français peuvent-elles se distinguer par des caractéristiques (1) acoustiques, (2) phonétiques, (3) phonologiques et (4) perceptives de la consonne /R/? La durée du contact avec le créole, a t-elle une influence sur la variété de français parlée par un locuteur ?Nos résultats montrent que plus la variété de français est basilectale, (1) plus la diffusion de l’énergie spectrale du /R/ est faible avec un taux de bruit réduit et une hauteur moyenne des fréquences basse ; (2) plus la variante fricatisée du /R/ est rare et plus la variante approximante est fréquente ; (3) plus le taux d’élision du /R/ en coda de syllabe augmente ainsi que le taux de réalisation de /R/ en tant que [w] en contexte labial; (4) plus la variété est perçue comme ayant un faible degré d’accent français. Généralement, plus la durée du contact entre le français et le créole est longue, plus cette variété est basilectale.Si les caractéristiques de la consonne /R/ permettent de discriminer la variété acrolectale de la variété basilectale (variétés extrêmes), il apparait plus difficile d’établir une liste d’indices (ou « lectomètres ») qui permettraient d’identifier les variétés se trouvant dans la zone intermédiaire : le mésolecte est doté d’une certaine imprévisibilitéThe goal of this thesis is to determine the contribution of experimental phonetics in the identification of a lectal variety, in taking for example languages spoken in Guadeloupe. In Guadeloupe, two languages coexist : French and Creole. But in fact, there is a diversity of varieties of French on the one hand, and of Creole on the other hand. Each of these varieties goes from acrolect to basilect through mesolect : so there are a French continuum and a Creole continuum. Thus, the sociolinguistic situation of Guadeloupe can be represented by a double continuum.These different varieties of French can they be distinguished by (1) acoustic, (2) phonetic, (3) phonological (4) and perceptual characteristics of /R/ consonant? Does the contact duration with Creole have an influence on the variety of French spoken by a speaker?Our results show that the more basilectal the variety of French is, (1) the lower spectral diffusion of /R/ energy is, with a reduced rate noise and a low frequency mean; (2) the more infrequent /R/ constrictive variants are and the more common /R/ approximant variants are ; (3) the greater rates of /R/ elision in coda of syllable and /R/ realization as [w] in labial context increase ;(4) and the more the variety is perceived as having a low degree of French accent. Usually, the longer duration of the contact between French and Creole is, the more basilectal the variety of French is.If characteristics of /R/ consonant can distinguish acrolect and basilect (extreme varieties), it’s not so easy to establish a list of indications (or « lectomètres ») in order to identify varieties in the intermediate zone: mesolect has a certain unpredictability
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Park, Linda Seojung. "Language varieties and variation in English usage among native Korean speakers in Seoul." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2019. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6830.
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In the last few decades, a rise in Korean speakers’ borrowing from English has led to a rich pool of contemporary Anglo-Korean vocabulary, also known as English loanwords. Despite the English roots of these borrowed words, their usage in a Korean context is often non-uniform and non-traditional; this process of borrowing, reshaping, and dispersing borrowed vocabulary provides insights on the dynamics of Korean society and its relationship to global English-speaking communities.
In order to investigate the variations on Korean speakers’ use of Anglo-Korean words and their potential correlations with various factors, I conducted interviews with 24 native Korean speakers in Seoul, Korea in the summer of 2018. Subjects were diverse in their age, gender, and occupation. I analyzed the r speakers with a preference of Sino-Korean words, speakers with a preference of Anglo-Korean words, and speakers with a speech mixed of Korean, Korean English, and American English.
I identified two variables as the most significant causes of diversity of speech: 1) age and 2) exposure to English. I established that 80% of my subjects over the age of 60 fell into the Sino-Korean-dominant category, and the best indicator of a subject being a translingual speaker was an increased exposure to English. In order to expand on evidence from my interviews, I historically contextualize Korean language in society alongside current ideologies related to language in Korea. In so doing, I explore the relationship between these variables and the language varieties of individual speakers. I argue that because a speaker’s age and exposure to English shapes the language variety they use and the language ideology in Korea touches individual speakers in different ways, native speakers in today’s Korea use several language varieties. These findings challenge the notion of a linguistically and ethnically homogeneous Korea and shed light on the current status of Korean English and American English in Korea.
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Holm, Idamaria. "Constructing identity: phonetic variation of the variable (ing) by Swedish L2 speakers of English." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-126065.
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This study investigates the use of the (ing) variable in the speech of Swedish L2 speakers of English. Developments in recent years have led to a shift in the language environment in Sweden, and the position of English has arguably evolved from a foreign language to a second language. The aim of the study is to investigate to what extent and in what ways Swedish L2 speakers’ use of the variable (ing) is affected by extra-linguistic conditioning relating to age, gender and style, in similar ways as have been uncovered in various studies on native speakers of English and L2 immersion learners. Furthermore, the construction of identity is examined based on the application of the variable. Sociolinguistic interviews with twelve participants of different age and gender were conducted to elicit the phonetic variable in different speech styles. Significantly, the study shows that the standard variant [ɪŋ] is favored by the Swedish L1 speakers, but that the choice of variant also is affected by all of the extra-linguistic variables to varying extents. The results show tendencies that the nonstandard [ɪn] is applied more the younger the participants are, if they are male and in less monitored speech styles. Moreover, the participants appear to be constructing their identity through the use of the variable, positioning themselves with English native peers.
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Vowell, Bianca. "The English of Māori speakers: changes in rhythm over time and prosodic variation by topic." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Communication Disorders, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/10371.
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This thesis investigates the rhythm and mean pitch of the English of Māori speakers. Recordings are analysed from speakers who have varying degrees of fluency and socialisation in Māori. The rhythm and mean pitch of their English language recordings are measured and analysed in order to address two questions.
The first part addresses the question, ‘Has the distinctive syllable-timed rhythm of modern Māori English developed from the mora-timed rhythm of the Māori language?’ Changes in the rhythm of the English of Māori speakers are measured over time. The rhythm of these speakers is then compared with age-matched Pākehā English speakers. The results show that the distinctive syllable-timed rhythm has indeed developed from the mora-timed rhythm of the Māori language and the use of this rhythm is related to the degree of Māori identity felt by the speaker.
The second part is also concerned with prosody and addresses the question, ‘Are rhythm and mean pitch influenced by topic?’ This is investigated by topic tagging the recordings and comparing the rhythm and mean pitch of each tagged section of speech. Two sets of topic tags are used; Set One has tags representing five categories (Subject, Referent, Location, Time and Attitude) and Set Two has only one tag per topic. The results suggest that mean pitch is not influenced by topic but is higher in sections of quoted speech than in regular speech. The subtle variations observed in rhythm are highly individualised and are influenced most strongly by the referent of the topic and the degree of affinity felt towards that referent.
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Young, Nathan. "Suburban Swedish maturing : Examining variation and perceptions among adult speakers of Swedish contemporary urban vernacular." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Avdelningen för allmän språkvetenskap, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-104642.
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Up to now, adolescent speakers have been the primary focus when researching contemporary variation in the language of Sweden’s urban areas. This study contributes to the growing body of research on the topic by examining and reporting on adult speakers of what is here referred to as förortssvenska (English: Suburban Swedish). This study focuses specifically on formal speech registers of eight young working-class men from Stockholm along with the perception and reception of their speech by two independent native-listener groups. The paper is the first to present quantifiable data on what has been previously referred to as a “staccato” rhythm in Suburban Swedish. Strong correlations are shown between prosodic rhythm as measured by the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) and speech speed to mean listener attitudes (R2=0.9). A strong correlation is also shown for nPVI’s influence on mean listener-projected ethnicity (R2=0.8). Alongside variation in rhythm, we also see phonemic variation that trends toward specific indexes of social identity as revealed by speaker interviews and native-listener assessments. Alongside linguistic variation among speakers, there is also significant variation within speaker peer groups. In addition to identifying specific linguistic features, the study examines social mechanisms revealed in interviews with and qualitative observations of speaker and listener participants. In exploratory fashion, ideas on variation, register ranges, meta-pragmatic stereotyping, and ethnic boundary-making are presented to make a case for treating contemporary urban variation in Swedish as a habitual semiotic extension of speaker identity. Indicators that contemporary urban variation in Swedish may be heading in the direction of sociolectal entrenchment are also discussed.Hittills har unga talare varit det primära fokus för forskning av aktuell språklig variation i urbana Sverige. Denna studie bidrar till den växande mängden forskning i detta ämne genom att undersöka och rapportera om vuxna talare av det som här kallas för förortssvenska. Studien fokuserar specifikt på formella talregister bland åtta unga män från Stockholms arbetarklass, samt perception och mottagande av deras tal av två oberoende grupper av infödda lyssnare. Denna studie är den första som presenterar kvantifierbar data rörande den i tidigare forskning så kallade stackato-rytmen i förortssvenska. Starka korrelationer finns mellan, å ena sidan, prosodisk rytm mätt med the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) och talhastighet och, å den andra, de genomsnittliga lyssnarattityderna (R2=0,9). Det finns också en stark korrelation för nPVIs påverkan på genomsnittlig lyssnarprojicerad etnicitet (R2=0,8). Vid sidan av variation i rytm ser vi också fonemisk variation som trender mot specifika index för social identitet. Och vid sidan av variation i rytm bland talarna, finns också en stor variation inom kamratgrupperna. Förutom att den identifierar specifika lingvistiska drag, undersöker studien sociala mekanismer som framkommer i intervjuer med och kvalitativa observationer av talardeltagarna och lyssnardeltagarna. På ett explorativt sätt, lägger studien fram idéer om variation, registeromfång, meta-pragmatiska stereotyper och etniska gränsskapande för att framhäva argumentet för att behandla den aktuella förortsvariationen i svenska som en habituell avsiktlig utbyggnad av talarens identitet. Det diskuteras också indikatorer till att den aktuella urbana variationen i svenska kan vara på väg mot sociolektal stabilisering.
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Marsh, Kim Wendy. "The performance of rural speakers of non-standard Afrikaans on the diagnostic evaluation of language variation." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/5296.
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Kato, Akiko. "Interlanguage variation in pitch and forms of English negatives: The case of Japanese speakers of English." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/289766.
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This study investigates systematic L2 variation in the level of prosody through analysis on six Japanese advanced ESL speakers' variable use of pitch prominence/non-prominence on and the contraction forms of not negatives (e.g., it isn't, it's not, it is not). Variable use of pitch and the forms of negatives was analyzed in terms of sociolinguistic strategies that fluent English L2 speakers should use to differentiate emphasis on negatives according to social contexts. The study examined the effects of 16 linguistic and sociolinguistic variables/factors on the L2 negative variation, and compared the results with equivalent data shown by L1 American-English speakers (Deckert & Yaeger-Dror, 1999; Yaeger-Dror, 1985, 1996, 1997), and by L1 Japanese speakers (Takano, 2001). Each ESL participant had interview conversations with four L1 American-English speakers who were varied by sex and status. The participants also read aloud passages from two American novels. These speech samples (approximately 27-hour speech) were audio-taped and transcribed to extract not negative tokens. In all, 1,329 negative tokens were used for analysis. Pitch was analyzed using a speech analysis computer program, and coded tokens were processed by the VARBRUL program for the variable rule analysis. The results showed that the L2 negative variation was constrained by immediate linguistic environments but not by sociolinguistic variables except for the reading versus conversation variable. This finding exhibited a sharp contrast with the variation patterns of both L1 English and L1 Japanese, where social contexts such as the interactive uses (pragmatic meanings) of negatives, interactional situations, and social identities of speakers and interlocutors clearly constrain the negative variation. The results also suggested that the L2 speakers' negative variation patterns were influenced by language developmental processes rather than by language or cultural transfer. The study concludes that it is important to have L2 English speakers notice sociolinguistic strategies in negative use through instruction, since development of competence in this feature will not otherwise be acquired.
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Ananthakrishnan, Gopal. "From Acoustics to Articulation : Study of the acoustic-articulatory relationship along with methods to normalize and adapt to variations in production across different speakers." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Tal-kommunikation, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-52899.
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The focus of this thesis is the relationship between the articulation ofspeech and the acoustics of produced speech. There are several problems thatare encountered in understanding this relationship, given the non-linearity,variance and non-uniqueness in the mapping, as well as the differences thatexist in the size and shape of the articulators, and consequently the acoustics,for different speakers. The thesis covers mainly four topics pertaining to thearticulation and acoustics of speech.The first part of the thesis deals with variations among different speakersin the articulation of phonemes. While the speakers differ physically in theshape of their articulators and vocal tracts, the study tries to extract articula-tion strategies that are common to different speakers. Using multi-way linearanalysis methods, the study extracts articulatory parameters which can beused to estimate unknown articulations of phonemes made by one speaker;knowing other articulations made by the same speaker and those unknown ar-ticulations made by other speakers of the language. At the same time, a novelmethod to select the number of articulatory model parameters, as well as thearticulations that are representative of a speaker’s articulatory repertoire, issuggested.The second part is devoted to the study of uncertainty in the acoustic-to-articulatory mapping, specifically non-uniqueness in the mapping. Severalstudies in the past have shown that human beings are capable of producing agiven phoneme using non-unique articulatory configurations, when the artic-ulators are constrained. This was also demonstrated by synthesizing soundsusing theoretical articulatory models. The studies in this part of the the-sis investigate the existence of non-uniqueness in unconstrained read speech.This is carried out using a database of acoustic signals recorded synchronouslyalong with the positions of electromagnetic coils placed on selected points onthe lips, jaws, tongue and velum. This part, thus, largely devotes itself todescribing techniques that can be used to study non-uniqueness in the sta-tistical sense, using such a database. The results indicate that the acousticvectors corresponding to some frames in all the phonemes in the databasecan be mapped onto non-unique articulatory distributions. The predictabil-ity of these non-unique frames is investigated, along with verifying whetherapplying continuity constraints can resolve this non-uniqueness.The third part proposes several novel methods of looking at acoustic-articulatory relationships in the context of acoustic-to-articulatory inversion.The proposed methods include explicit modeling of non-uniqueness usingcross-modal Gaussian mixture modeling, as well as modeling the mappingas local regressions. Another innovative approach towards the mapping prob-lem has also been described in the form of relating articulatory and acousticgestures. Definitions and methods to obtain such gestures are presented alongwith an analysis of the gestures for different phoneme types. The relationshipbetween the acoustic and articulatory gestures is also outlined. A method toconduct acoustic-to-articulatory inverse mapping is also suggested, along withva method to evaluate it. An application of acoustic-to-articulatory inversionto improve speech recognition is also described in this part of the thesis.The final part of the thesis deals with problems related to modeling infantsacquiring the ability to speak; the model utilizing an articulatory synthesizeradapted to infant vocal tract sizes. The main problem addressed is related tomodeling how infants acquire acoustic correlates that are normalized betweeninfants and adults. A second problem of how infants decipher the number ofdegrees of articulatory freedom is also partially addressed. The main contri-bution is a realistic model which shows how an infant can learn the mappingbetween the acoustics produced during the babbling phase and the acous-tics heard from the adults. The knowledge required to map correspondingadult-infant speech sounds is shown to be learnt without the total numberof categories or one-one correspondences being specified explicitly. Instead,the model learns these features indirectly based on an overall approval rating,provided by a simulation of adult perception, on the basis of the imitation ofadult utterances by the infant model.Thus, the thesis tries to cover different aspects of the relationship betweenarticulation and acoustics of speech in the context of variations for differentspeakers and ages. Although not providing complete solutions, the thesis pro-poses novel directions for approaching the problem, with pointers to solutionsin some contexts.QC 20111222
Computer-Animated language Teachers (CALATea), Audio-Visual Speech Inversion (ASPI)
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梁舜德 and Shun Tak Albert Leung. "A study of some variations on the hidden Markov modelling approach to speaker independent isolated word speech recognition." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1990. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31209294.
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Leung, Shun Tak Albert. "A study of some variations on the hidden Markov modelling approach to speaker independent isolated word speech recognition /." [Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong], 1990. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B12782956.
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Benavent, Chàfer José Vicente. "Voice line-ups: Testing aural-perceptual recognition on native speakers of a foreign language." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/668733.
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The focal point of this PhD thesis is (foreign/native) speaker perception and recognition. To test such phenomena, jurors from British and Spanish universities were selected to answer ad hoc perception surveys (voice line-ups in three distinct languages: English, Spanish, and Dutch) to unravel the correlations of speaker-specific sociolinguistic factors and acoustic parameters impinging upon success/error rates in identification and discrimination tasks.
To gain a more in-depth understanding of real-life scenarios, the properties of the data are adjusted accordingly (reduced duration of voice samples, semi-spontaneous exchanges), which contrasts with the ideal and controlled conditions hitherto used in experiments of this kind. From a methodological point of view, this is one of the main contributions of this work, besides being one of its challenges, since it aims to prove that differentiating speakers by means of acoustic-phonetic analysis is still plausible despite the limitations of the source material.
It is concluded that language familiarity did not influence the results obtained. However, learned languages exhibit a rather unpredictable behaviour. On the other hand, acoustic- phonetic analyses are proven to yield less error rates than the jurors’ responses gathered through identification tests. Nevertheless, jurors’ scores in discrimination tasks reveal even less false alarms, with the exception of the English voice samples’ analysis (0% error rates).
In light of the above, further research is naturally encouraged to verify such claims. These findings are indeed limited to some extent, given the interdisciplinary nature of speaker recognition due to the presence of uncontrolled co-existing influences such as psychological states, the memory, and environmental factors. Despite the fact that statistical correlations were not as sound as one may expect, this thesis brings us a step closer to better understand the intricacies of real-life forensic voice comparison through the analysis of semi-spontaneous speech, which is arguably harder to analyse than the samples recorded under laboratory conditions.El punto fundamental de esta tesis doctoral se centra en el reconocimiento y percepción de hablantes extranjeros/nativos. Para examinar dichos fenómenos, participantes de universidades británicas y españolas fueron seleccionados como jueces de las encuestas de percepción confeccionadas para este fin (ruedas de reconocimiento con tres tipos de lenguas diferenciadas: inglés, español y neerlandés), y así desentrañar las relaciones existentes entre el porcentaje de aciertos/errores en tareas de identificación y discriminación de locutores y los factores inherentes al hablante, como el perfil sociolingüístico y los parámetros acústicos pertinentes. Para ahondar nuestra comprensión de las circunstancias reales, los datos usados se ajustaron debidamente (duración reducida de grabaciones semi-espontáneas), lo que contrasta con las condiciones ideales y controladas hasta ahora empleadas en experimentos de este tipo. Desde un punto de vista metodológico, ésta es una de las principales contribuciones de la presente tesis, además de ser uno de sus retos, ya que pretende demostrar la viabilidad del análisis acústico en la discriminación de hablantes pese a las limitaciones dadas por el material analizado. Se concluye que la familiaridad del idioma no condicionó los resultados obtenidos. Aun así, las lenguas aprendidas exhibieron un comportamiento impredecible. Por otro lado, el análisis acústico produjo una tasa de errores inferior a las producidas por el jurado en pruebas deidentificación. Sin embargo, las tareas dediscriminación mostraron aún menos falsas alarmas en los participantes, con la excepción del análisis de muestras inglesas (con una tasa de error del 0%). En virtud de lo expuesto, se recomienda seguir con esta línea de investigación para verificar dichas afirmaciones. Por otro lado, las limitaciones radican en la interdisciplinariedad del reconocimiento de locutores y en la presencia de influencias coexistentes incontrolables como los estados psicológicos, la memoria y los factores medioambientales. Pese a la falta de contundencia de las pruebas estadísticas, esta tesis nos lleva un paso más cerca hacia la comprensión de las complejidades inherentes a la comparación forense de voces en casos reales mediante el análisis de habla semi-espontánea, cuya información es probablemente más difícil de analizar que la encontrada en grabaciones de laboratorio.
El punt fonamental d’aquesta tesi doctoral se centra en el reconeixement i percepció de parlants estrangers/nadius. Per a examinar aquests fenòmens, participants d’universitats britàniques i espanyoles es seleccionaren com a jutges de les enquestes de percepció confeccionades per a aquesta fi (rodes de reconeixement amb tres tipus de llengües diferenciades: anglès, espanyol i neerlandès), i així investigar les relacions existents entre el percentatge d’encerts/errors en tasques d’identificació i discriminació de locutors i els factors inherents al parlant, com el perfil sociolingüístic i els paràmetres acústics pertinents. Per a aprofundir la nostra comprensió de les circumstàncies reals, les dades emprades s’ajustaren degudament (durada reduïda de gravacions semi-espontànies), la qual cosa contrasta amb les condicions ideals i controlades que s’usaven fins ara en experiments d’aquest tipus. Des d’un punt de vista metodològic, aquesta és una de les contribucions principals de la present tesi, a més de ser un dels seus reptes, ja que pretén demostrar la viabilitat de l’anàlisi acústica en la discriminació de parlants malgrat les limitacions donades pel material analitzat. Es conclou que la familiaritat de l’idioma no ha condicionat els resultats obtinguts. Així i tot, les llengües apreses exhibiren un comportament impredictible. D’altra banda, l’anàlisi acústica causa una taxa d’error inferior a les produïdes pel jurat en proves d’identificació. No obstant això, les tasques de discriminació mostraren encara menys falses alarmes en els participants, amb l’excepció de l’anàlisi en mostres angleses (amb una taxa d’error del 0%). Tenint en compte l’anterior, es recomana seguir amb aquesta línia de recerca per poder verificar les afirmacions ja esmentades. Encara més, les limitacions radiquen en la interdisciplinarietat del reconeixement de locutors i en la presència d’influències coexistents incontrolables com els estats psicològics, la memòria i els factors mediambientals. Malgrat la insuficient contundència de les proves estadístiques, aquesta tesi ens porta un pas més prop cap a la comprensió de les complexitats inherents a la comparació forense de veus en casos reals mitjançant l’anàlisi de parla semi-espontània, la informació de la qual és probablement més difícil d’analitzar que el que s’enregistra a les mostres de laboratori.
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Gran, Betty Jean. "A study of language attitudes in Hong Kong: Cantonese speakers' response to English and Cantonese on thetelephone." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1987. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31949034.
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Johansson, Falck Marlene. "Metaphor variation across L1 and L2 speakers of English : Do differences at the level of linguistic metaphor matter?" Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-52534.
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English and Swedish, which are both Germanic languages spoken in similar cultures in the Western World, display many similarities with regard to the conceptual metaphors reflected in them. However, the way that the same conceptual metaphor is linguistically instantiated in both languages may be somewhat different. This chapter is a corpus-based analysis of metaphorical ‘path’, ‘road’, and ‘way’ sentences in English produced by speakers with British English as their first language (L1) and Swedish university students with Englishas their second language (L2). The aim is to see how these L2 speakers of English deal with differences at the level of linguistic metaphor in the two languages, and find out how important this level of organization really is.Embodiment of Motion Metaphors
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Dunn, Robert Lowell. "Plenty too much Chinese food: variation in adjective and intensifier choice in native and non-native speakers of English." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/13921.
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Master of ArtsDepartment of Modern Languages
Mary T. Copple
Adjective use and intensification by native speakers of English has been the subject of much study, yet intensification strategies used by non-native speakers have received relatively less attention. The present study compares adjective use by five native English speakers with that of five English L2 speakers at Kansas State University in order to describe in detail how learner patterns of use differ from those of native speakers living in the same community. From conversational data, adjectives were extracted and analyzed for linguistic features such as adjective class, and use of intensification. Results quantify how the non-native speakers have access to a smaller set of adjectives than native speakers, and how those sets differ. Interestingly, the L2 speakers intensify their adjectives at a higher rate than native speakers, again employing a smaller set. The types of adjectives used by the two groups differed in significant ways, with native speakers using more precise, contextually-specific evaluative adjectives such as crappy, elite, retarded, and obsessed, while non-native speakers used more generic adjectives such as happy, nice, long, and famous. The generalized nature of these adjectives, as well as the smaller number of lexemes at the non-native speakers’ disposal, may account for the increased rate of intensification shown by the non-native speakers. Specifically, the depth and complexity of meaning required for conversational interaction is more often handled by native speakers via a variety of specialized adjectives, while non-native speakers must rely more on adjective intensification in order to convey subtle differences in meaning. These results help us better understand how advanced learner language compares to native use. Implications for English language teaching include, but are not limited to, new insight into the types of adjectives taught for conversational English, explicit teaching of intensification strategies, and teaching learners how to construct compound adjectives.
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Wileman, Bruce. "Regional variation in South African English : a socio-phonetic comparison of young white speakers in Cape Town and Durban." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11442.
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This research has been designed to investigate regional differences in a variety of South African English known as General South African English, between the White communities of Durban and Cape Town respectively. The research is socio-phonetic in its focus and therefore three variables, the PRICE, NURSE and KIT vowels of Wells’ (1982) lexical sets, were selected for acoustic analysis, a selection which was guided partly by the researcher’s own intuitions and partly by observed correlations in the impressionistic literature between certain realisations of these vowels and the Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal as regions.
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Dyson, Bronwen Patricia, University of Western Sydney, and of Arts Education and Social Sciences College. "Developmental style in second language processing : a study of inter-learner variation in the acquisition of English as a second language." THESIS_CAESS_XXX_Dyson_B.xml, 2004. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/817.
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Research into how learners acquire second language has established that there are developmental stages but has not established the nature of variation within these stages. On the basis of a longitudinal study of the speech of six learners acquiring English as a Second Language (ESL), this thesis investigates the proposals which have been made about variation in stages within the paradigm established by the Multidimensional Model (MDM). Of particular interest is the variational option hypothesis in Processability Theory (PT), the theoretical framework of this thesis. The findings indicate that these variational options and the variational features are not satisfactory in three main respects. They are based on a theoretical construct which makes problematic assumptions about the learner’s knowledge of the second language, they do not reliably predict variation and they exclude important aspects of variation. This thesis proposes a new approach termed ‘developmental style’ which suggests that learner orientation at each stage can be defined in terms of a learner’s lexical or grammatical orientation. The findings demonstrate support for the developmental hypothesis and show that learners are consistent in their particular developmental style at the different stages investigated. The results indicate that learners vary in terms of their general grammatical development at any stage. This study also finds that language background, gender and task are variables which need to be controlled (informally) in order to demonstrate developmental styles.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Berwick, Richard. "The effect of task variation in teacher-led groups on repair of English as a foreign language." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29230.
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An experiment was conducted to determine how learners and teachers of English as a foreign language in Japan cooperatively attempt to improve the comprehensibility of their talk in English during performance of various conversational tasks. The basic practical issue under study was the possibility that certain kinds of teacher-led groups and tasks would be more effective in generating repair and negotiation of the language by which tasks are accomplished than others, and that these group-task combinations might eventually be employed as alternatives to traditional teacher-fronted forms of foreign language instruction.
The study was operationalized in a 2 x 5 between-and-within subjects, repeated-measures analysis of variance design. Two, six-dyad, teacher-led groups -- homogeneous (Japanese teacher/Japanese learner) and mixed (native English speaking teacher/Japanese learner) -- were formed in order to compare the frequency of 12 repair exponents generated during performance of five tasks. Teaching goals were represented in two tasks, instruction in use of the string-searching function of a laptop computer 1) with and 2) without the computer physically present. Non-teaching (social and cooperative problem-solving) goals were embodied in three additional tasks, 3) free discussion, and construction of a Lego (snap-together) toy accomplished with participants facing 4) away from and 5) towards each other. Task categories were also divided into experiential and expository activities (respectively, Tasks 2 and 5, and Tasks 1 and 4) following a model for use of reference in English. Experiential dyadic activity was related to the occurrence of exophoric (pointing out) reference and expository dyadic activity to the incidence of anaphoric (pointing back) reference in the task transcripts.
Results of the analysis of variance indicated that while tasks differed on the basis of repair and reference, the groups did not: Dyadic talk was more responsive to the nature of the task than to the language background of the teacher. Further analysis suggested more frequent and elaborate repair during tasks which combine non-teaching goals and experiential processes as compared with tasks emphasizing teaching goals and expository processes. Qualitative analysis of task transcripts supported this distinction and elaborated specific discourse functions for such repair exponents as referential questions and confirmation checks which characteristically co-occur in conversational discourse.
Based on these findings, it was concluded that Japanese teachers are capable of generating appropriate conversational repair in dyadic interaction with learners largely on a par with their native English-speaking counterparts. To this extent, their potential contribution to learners' acquisition of a foreign language is of an equivalent value. Furthermore, teacher-led small groups can be effective contexts for generating a rich supply of conversational repair and. thus should be considered as alternatives to traditional teacher-fronted foreign language classroom instruction. Finally, tasks which support achievement of social and problem-solving (i.e., non-teaching) goals through experiential activity are effective contexts in which normal forms of conversational repair can be generated. Since such tasks can be adapted easily to classroom settings, they merit consideration among the range of task options available to teachers and other instructional planners.Education, Faculty of
Educational Studies (EDST), Department of
Graduate
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Drummond, Rob John. "Sociolinguistic variation in a second language : the influence of local accent on the pronunciation of non-native English speakers living in Manchester." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2010. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/sociolinguistic-variation-in-a-second-language-the-influence-of-local-accent-on-the-pronunciation-of-nonnative-english-speakers-living-in-manchester(614f2f75-4705-4cc0-a93a-4b1914a88e04).html.
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This study is an investigation into sociolinguistic variation in a second language. More specifically, it is an investigation into the extent to which speakers of English as a second language acquire particular features of the variety of English they are exposed to. The speakers in question are Polish migrants, and the variety of English is that found in Manchester, a city in the North West of England.The research uses data gathered from 41 participants who have been in Manchester for various lengths of time and who came to the UK for a wide range of reasons. The aim was to explore the extent to which local accent features are acquired by second language English speakers, and the linguistic and social factors which influence this acquisition. Methodologically, the research draws on practices from variationist sociolinguistics, but by using them in a second language context, the study has the additional aim of developing the link between these two areas of study. Four linguistic features were identified, on the basis of them each exhibiting local variants that differ from any pedagogical model of English the speakers will have been exposed to in Poland. All four demonstrated some degree of change towards the local variants in the speech of many of the participants, but to greatly differing degrees. Multiple regression analyses helped to determine which factors might be influencing the patterns of variation, with the social constraints of length of residence, level of English, gender, attitude, and identity among those believed to be playing a part. The thesis ends with a discussion exploring the implications of the findings in terms of existing and future research, and looks at how they might usefully be applied to situations outside that of academic linguistics.
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Gavaldà, Ferré Núria. "Index of idiolectal similitude for the phonological module of English applied to forensic speech comparison." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/123775.
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The framework of the present PhD dissertation is the area that results from the overlap between the field of variationist sociolinguistics and forensic linguistics, which mainly concerns the study of variation between different individuals –inter-speaker variation– and variation within a single individual –intra-speaker variation– for forensic purposes. The primary objective of the present dissertation is twofold. On the one hand, it proposes a protocol for the creation of an Index of Idiolectal Similitude (IIS) for the phonological module of English that can effectively determine whether two oral samples show inter-speaker variation –which would indicate that the samples have been produced by two different individuals– or intra-speaker variation –which would allow to conclude that the samples have been produced by the same individual. On the other hand, the analysis of the fourteen variables proposed in a corpus that contains data on sixteen speakers and that is stratified according to measurement time –as a result of a real time study–, language contact and gender, provides an important contribution to the Base Rate knowledge, which constitutes one of the main challenges of current forensic linguistics.
Results show that inter-speaker variation is generally higher than intra-speaker variation, and that a speaker’s idiolectal style remains relatively stable over time. Therefore, the IIS is presented as an innovative quantitative tool which, together with other quantitative and qualitative techniques that the linguist acting as expert witness may have at their disposition, can help reach a conclusion regarding the probability of two samples having been produced or not by the same speaker.Aquesta tesi doctoral s’emmarca dins l’àrea comú on es troben els camps de la sociolingüística de la variació i la lingüística forense, en la qual es troba l’estudi de la variació entre diferents individus –variació inter-parlant– i la variació en del mateix individu –variació intra-parlant– amb finalitats forenses. La investigació té dos objectius principals. D’una banda, es proposa el protocol per a la creació d’un Índex de Similitud Idiolectal (ISI) per al mòdul fonològic de l’anglès que pot determinar de manera efectiva si dues mostres orals mostren variació inter-parlant –que indicaria que les mostres haurien estat produïdes per dos individus diferents– o variació intra-parlant –la qual cosa portaria a concloure que les mostres haurien estat produïdes pel mateix individu. D’altra banda, l’anàlisi de les catorze variables proposades en un corpus que conté setze parlants i que està estratificat per temps de mesura –com a resultat d’un estudi en temps real–, contacte de llengües i gènere biològic, comporta una contribució important a la referència de distribució poblacional (Base Rate Knowledge) que constitueix un dels grans reptes de la lingüística forense actual. Els resultats mostren que la variació inter-parlant és generalment més alta que la intra-parlant, i que l’estil idiolectal d’un individu es manté relativament estable malgrat el pas del temps. Per tant, l’ISI es presenta com una eina quantitativa innovadora que, juntament amb altres tècniques quantitatives i qualitatives que el lingüista forense pot tenir a la seva disposició, pot ajudar a prendre una decisió sobre la probabilitat que dues mostres hagin estat produïdes o no pel mateix parlant.
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Awoonor-Aziaku, Lena [Verfasser], Henning [Gutachter] Reetz, and Reiner [Gutachter] Voßen. "Variation study of the Received Pronunciation (RP) vowel phonemes /e/, /ɜ:/ and /ə/, among Ewe Speakers of English in Ghana / Lena Awoonor-Aziaku ; Gutachter: Henning Reetz, Reiner Voßen." Frankfurt am Main : Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1172811288/34.
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Miyagi, Kazufumi. "Japanese EFL teachers' perceptions of nonnative varieties of English : are they ready to include other Englishes in their classrooms?" Thesis, McGill University, 2006. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=98560.
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This study investigates Japanese EFL teachers' perceptions of regional varieties of English, which are designated as either the Outer Circle or the Expanding Circle by Kachru (1985), and their potential place in EFL teaching in Japan. Participants were 36 teachers at junior high and elementary schools and 28 undergraduates in a TEFL certificate program. Data collection was completed with the use of two Likert-scale questionnaires: one involving a task in listening to various English varieties, and the other asking about beliefs about the English language in general and perceptions of nonnative/nonstandard Englishes as opposed to the two major varieties in ELT in Japan: American and British English. In addition, oral interviews were conducted with several participants and their assistant language teachers (ALTs).The findings suggested that in-service teachers showed more ambivalent attitudes toward nonnative varieties than student-teachers did; although the teachers acknowledged potential benefits of nonnative Englishes for the future use of EIL, they showed hesitation in regarding different Englishes as instructional models to be exposed to students. However, the study also showed participants' interest in introducing other Englishes as awareness-raising models. The possibility of inclusion of nonnative varieties was further discussed.
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Broomfield, Ariane. "The theory of interlanguage phonology and its applicability to the acquisition of German by native speakers of English : an analysis of phonetic variation and development among university students of German." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.416424.
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Fourar, Fatima Zohra. "Influence de la variable générationnelle sur les interactions langagières : changements linguistiques et conflits culturels entre générations en Algérie et en France." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Université de Lorraine, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020LORR0273.
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L’échange et le vivre ensemble des générations ont pour objectif le partage des espaces publics et des lieux de vie, à l’échelle d’une famille, d’une ville, d’un cadre social ou culturel. Mais cela n’empêche pas qu’il puisse y avoir des changements de transmission de valeurs et de traditions intergénérationnelles, avec l’introduction des nouvelles technologies, dans le quotidien des individus. De par cette mixité des générations, les rapports urbains/ruraux et le partage d’un espace approprié, privé/public, donnent naissance à une concurrence identitaire et à un changement dans les pratiques langagières des individus. Attias-Donfut (1995), Arrondel et Masson (1999), entre autres, admettent que la mobilisation des ressources langagières, des savoir-faire des acteurs dans la prévention des risques sociaux et la construction de réponses collectives, ont un impact positif sur le développement social. Dans cette étude, nous accordons la priorité aux sciences du langage pour voir si on peut traiter la question du changement linguistique aux plans théorique et descriptif. Ainsi, nous essayons de répondre à ces questions : Quel est l’impact de ce nouveau code ou bien de ce nouveau français populaire sur la langue française en général et sur les échanges langagiers en particulier, entre la génération d’hier notée X (1960-1980) et celle d’aujourd’hui notée Y (1980-1997) ? Comment le locuteur et l’interlocuteur de ces deux générations répondent à leurs besoins langagiers ? Quels sont les facteurs d’évolution des situations linguistiques ? Comment agissent-ils ? Et que laissent-ils présager ? Enfin, sur quoi se fonder pour décider que les différences entre les situations linguistiques sont le produit de changements et non de substitutions/de transformations ? L’objectif de ce travail est d’expérimenter une modélisation théorique des marques discursives intergénérationnelles, relatives aux faits caractéristiques d’une génération, d’un territoire, d’un changement linguistique et des pratiques langagières. En effet, une langue ne peut exister que parce que ses locuteurs préservent son existence à travers des/leurs pratiques linguistiques, représentées et/ou effectives. Deux différentes expérimentations descriptives et analytiques ont été réalisées afin d’analyser et discuter les rapports existants entre le changement linguistique et les variations langagières contemporaines, dont plus particulièrement la conscience linguistique et sociolinguistique. Une étude détaillée est proposée à cet effet. Celle-ci comporte : 1. Du côté des Pratiques langagières déclarées (Représentations), une enquête semi-directive sous forme d’entretiens basés sur deux différents questionnaires préétablis auprès d’un public distinct sur deux différents territoires en Algérie, Université de Batna 2, et en France, Université de Lorraine-Metz ; 2. Du côté des Pratiques langagières effectives, les représentations des médias, sous forme d’une étude analytique d’un programme de variétés et de divertissement, disponible sur la chaîne de télévision TF1, Koh-Lanta « Le choc des générations » 2017. Nous avons recensé les grilles d’analyse de ce programme, situées dans le temps et l’espace ainsi que les pratiques langagières intergénérationnelles telles que représentées par les médiasThe interactions and living together of generations aim to the sharing of public places and living spaces, on the scale of a family, a city, a social or cultural framework. But this does not prevent that there may be changes in the transmission of values and intergenerational traditions, with the introduction of new technologies, in the daily lives of individuals. Due to this mix of generations, urban/rural relations and the sharing of an appropriate space, private/public, gave rise to identity competition and a change in the language practices of individuals. Attias-Donfut (1995), Arrondel and Masson (1999), among others, admit that the mobilization of language resources, the know-how of actors in the prevention of social risks and the construction of collective responses, have a positive impact on social development.In this study, we gave priority to language sciences to see if we can address the issue of linguistic change at the theoretical and descriptive levels. Thus, we try to answer these questions: What is the impact of this new code or of this new popular French on the French language in general and on language exchanges in particular, between the generation of yesterday noted X (1960-1980) and today’s Y (1980-1997)? How do the speaker and interlocutor of these two generations respond to their language needs? What are the factors for the evolution of linguistic situations? How do they act? And what do they suggest? Finally, on what basis should we decide that the differences between linguistic situations are the product of changes and not substitutions/transformations? The objective of this work is to experiment with a theoretical modeling of the intergenerational discursive marks, relating to the characteristic facts of a generation, a territory, a linguistic change and language practices. Indeed, a language can exist only because its speakers preserve its existence through linguistic practices, represented and/or effective. Two different descriptive and analytical experiments were carried out to analyze and discuss the relationship between linguistic change and contemporary language variations, in particular linguistic and sociolinguistic awareness. A detailed study is proposed for this purpose. It includes: 1. On the Declared Language Practices (Representations) side, a semi-directive survey in the form of interviews based on two different pre-determined questionnaires with a separate audience in two different territories in Algeria, University of Batna 2, and in France, the University of Lorraine-Metz; 2. On the Effective Language Practices side, media representations, in the form of an analytical study of a variety and entertainment program, available on the TF1 television channel, Koh-Lanta «The Clash of Generations» 2017. We have identified the analytical grids of this program, located in time and space, as well as the intergenerational language practices as represented by the media
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McCourt, Claire A. "Learner use of French second-person pronouns in synchronous electronic communication." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2008. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc9753/.
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This study analyzes students' use of the French second-person pronouns tu (T) and vous (V) in small-group (2-3 students) inter-learner online chat sessions. The influence of internal linguistic factors (i.e., turn type and morphosyntactic environment) on learners' appropriate vs. inappropriate use of these pronouns is considered. The study also investigates the influence of Instructional Level on tu-vous use and the extent to which students from different instructional levels provide various types of peer assistance (e.g., lexical, morphosyntactic, and sociolinguistic/pragmatic) . Pronoun use was extremely unstable for learners of all levels, and a Kruskal-Wallis analysis revealed that Instructional Level did not significantly affect appropriate T/V use overall. Instructional Level and Syntax did, however, significantly affect interrogative T/V use, as shown through multivariate analyses. Peer-assisted performance was limited to lexical retrieval. Pedagogical recommendations are presented for teaching and learning second-person pronouns in French.
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Rodrigues, Thais Leal. "Variação linguística e o ensino de português brasileiro a hispanofalantes: a representação do complemento verbal." Niterói, 2017. https://app.uff.br/riuff/handle/1/3792.
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Esta dissertação de mestrado apresenta os resultados da pesquisa realizada sobre o ensino da representação do complemento verbal a falantes de espanhol, seja o objeto direto, seja o objeto indireto, fato linguístico variável na língua portuguesa do Brasil (PB). O trabalho consiste em uma análise de materiais didáticos de ensino de português para estrangeiros (PLE), com o intuito de verificar como são apresentados e ensinados os complementos verbais, nos referidos materiais, e averiguar se a variação linguística é contemplada no tratamento desse tema. A pesquisa se apoia nos preceitos da Sociolinguística. Segundo essa teoria, todas as línguas variam, portanto são heterogêneas. Entretanto, a heterogeneidade linguística não representa um caos, pois é possível sistematizar a variação. No âmbito da aplicação pedagógica de tais conceitos, encontramos respaldo na Sociolinguística Educacional, de Bortoni-Ricardo. A linguista preconiza um ensino de língua materna bidialetal, isto é, uma didática que parte do dialeto do aluno, sem preconceitos, para então ampliar sua competência linguística. A metodologia utilizada no desenvolvimento dessa pesquisa é qualitativa, de classificação bibliográfica. Foram analisados dez livros de ensino PLE, publicados ou editados a partir do ano 2000, a fim de verificar se os estudos linguísticos influenciaram a produção dos materiais, no concernente ao tratamento do tema da representação do complemento verbal. Constatamos que já se percebe certa evolução na elaboração da maioria dos livros analisados, que já tratam da variação linguística de alguma forma. Contudo, comprovamos que ainda se faz necessário dar importância a esse tema e não abordá-lo apenas em notas e advertências, sem o imprescindível esclarecimento do conceito de adequação linguística. Não basta apresentar as variantes, é necessário aprofundar a discussão sobre o tema, de acordo com a necessidade do corpo discente. Com relação especificamente ao preenchimento do complemento verbal, essa pesquisa comprovou que ainda há um predomínio de uma visão normativa, pois a grande maioria só menciona a variante padrão (clíticos), deixando de lado a variante mais utilizada pelos brasileiros (objeto nulo), embora quase todos os materiais se proponham a ensinar língua falada
This master’s degree thesis presents the results of the research, conducted on the teaching of the verbal complement representation to Spanish speakers, as either direct object or indirect object, a variable linguistic fact in the Brazilian Portuguese (BP) language. The study consists of an analysis of Portuguese as Foreign Language (PFL) educational materials, aimed at verifying how verbal complements are presented and taught, in said materials, and investigating if linguistic variation is contemplated and addressed in this topic. The study is based on the precepts of Sociolinguistics. According to this theory, all languages vary, therefore they are heterogeneous. However, linguistic heterogeneity does not represent chaos, as it is possible to systematize variation. Regarding the educational application of such concepts, we find support in the Educational Sociolinguistics, of Bortoni-Ricardo. The linguist advocates a two-way maternal language teaching, that is, a didactic that starts from the student's dialect, without prejudice, and then broadens their linguistic competence. The methodology used in the development of this study is qualitative, of literature classification. Ten PFL (Portuguese as a Foreign Language) teaching books were analyzed. These books have been published or edited from the year 2000, in order to verify if the linguistic studies influenced the production of materials, regarding the treatment of the verbal complement representation topic. We can see that some progress has already been made in the elaboration of most of the analyzed books, which already deal with linguistic variation in some way. However, we have shown that it is still necessary to give importance to this issue and not only address it in notes and warnings, without the indispensable clarification of the concept of linguistic adequacy. It is not enough to present the variants, it is necessary to deepen the discussion on the subject, according to the need of the student body. With respect to the completion of the verbal complement, this research proved that there is still a predominance of a normative view, since the great majority only mentions the standard variant (clitics), leaving aside the most used variant for Brazilians (null object), although almost all materials are aimed to teach spoken language
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Souza, Gládisson Garcia Aragão. "Palatalização de oclusivas alveolares em Sergipe." Universidade Federal de Sergipe, 2016. https://ri.ufs.br/handle/riufs/5843.
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The variation in the realization of phonemes /t/ and /d/ has been the subject of several studies in Brazilian Portuguese HORA, 1990; ABAURRE; PAGOTTO, 2002; PAULA, 2006; BATTISTI et al, 2007; PIRES, 2007; DUTRA, 2007; MATTÉ, 2009; SOUZA NETO, 2014, among others), that signal to diatopic conditioning phenomenon. This work aims to contribute to the description of the variety of speech of Sergipe. considering phonetic-phonological aspects of three language communities of the state of Sergipe. Therefore, let us take as an object of study the variation of the consonants /t/ and /d/ before the high front vowel not rounded /i/, which are produced as palate-alveolar affricates (/t/ e /d/) as [‘tia], [‘dent], [ci’dad], [i’dad] produced by informants of Aracaju, Itabaiana and lizard. For this study, 60 were taken sociolinguistic interviews of university's of Falares Sergipanos. The research builds on the Theory of Sociolinguistics variationist (LABOV, [1972]; 2008), and the Usage-Based Phonology (Bybee, 2001). ). For Labov, the language is assumed heterogeneous, conditional upon restrictions with regard to the linguistic context and social context. According to the Usage-Based Phonology, sound changes are phonetically and lexically gradual. The in-memory representation of individuals is affected by the tokens; the language goes through several reorganizations and changes according to the experiences and use. In the refers the process of varying the palatalization, that undergoes adjustments of phonetic properties and articulatory gestures. As results, the statistical selection referring to linguistic and extralinguistic variables in the order of relevance in conditioning was: Geographical Group, Context Phonological Precedent; Sex / Gender; Interviewer; sonority; and Position of Syllable Tonic. The geographic group is that most favors the palatalization of alveolar stops: Aracaju and Itabaiana were the most favored palatalization, which shows the variation diatopic. The consonant sibilant is the factor of the antecedent phonological context that most favors the palatalization of alveolar plosives consonant. As for the Sex / Gender, women palatalizaram more often than men, whereas women tend to use the prestige variant, it is possible to infer that women are leading change. The variable interviewer, this does not favor the trigger effect once the interviewer not palatalizam appear more enhancers of palatalization. And as the variable sound, the deaf factor was the most motivated palatalization in geographical groups analyzed. In both wheels this factor was more motivating for palatalization. And the position of the stressed syllable, expressed more favorable application of the palatalization of dental plosives not end postonic and pretonic. Data from the acoustic analysis revealed the existence of gradients between the production of the full form and the innovative pattern, suggesting a change in progress.A variação na realização dos fonemas /t/ e /d/ tem sido objeto de diversos estudos no português brasileiro (HORA, 1990; ABAURRE; PAGOTTO, 2002; PAULA, 2006; BATTISTI et al, 2007; PIRES, 2007; DUTRA, 2007; MATTÉ, 2009; SOUZA NETO, 2014, dentre outros), que sinalizam para o condicionamento diatópico do fenômeno. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo contribuir para a descrição da variedade do falar sergipano, considerando aspectos fonético-fonológicos de três comunidades linguísticas do estado de Sergipe. Para tanto, tomamos como objeto de estudo a variação das consoantes /t/ e /d/ diante da vogal alta anterior não arredondada /i/, onde são produzidas como africadas palato-alveolares (/t/ e /d/) como [‘tia], [‘dent], [ci’dad], [i’dad] produzidas por informantes de Aracaju, Itabaiana e Lagarto. Para esse estudo, foram tomadas 60 entrevistas sociolinguísticas de universitários do banco de dados Falares Sergipanos, estratificadas quanto ao sexo/gênero e localidade. A pesquisa toma como base a Teoria da Sociolinguística Variacionista (LABOV, [1972]; 2008) e a Teoria de Uso (BYBEE, 2001). Para Labov, a língua é assumida como heterogênea, condicionada a restrições no que se refere ao contexto linguístico e social. Segundo a Fonologia de Uso, as mudanças sonoras são fonética e lexicamente graduais. A representação na memória dos indivíduos é afetada pelos tokens, a língua passa por diversas reestruturações, e muda de acordo com as experiências e com o uso. No que remete o processo de variação da palatalização, essa passa por ajustes fonéticos de propriedades e gestos articulatórios. Como resultados, a seleção estatística referente às variáveis linguísticas e extralinguísticas, por ordem de relevância no condicionamento foi a: Grupo geográfico, Contexto Fonológico Precedente; Sexo/Gênero; Entrevistador; Sonoridade; e Posição da Sílaba Tônica. O grupo geográfico é o que mais favorece a palatalização de oclusivas alveolares: Aracaju e Itabaiana foram os que mais favoreceram a palatalização, o que evidencia a variação diatópica. A consoante sibilante é o fator do contexto fonológico antecedente que mais favorece a palatalização das oclusivas alveolares. Quanto ao Sexo/Gênero, as mulheres palatalizaram com mais frequência que os homens, considerando que mulheres tendem a usar a variante de prestígio, é possível inferir que as mulheres estão conduzindo a mudança. Em relação à variável entrevistador, esse não favorece o efeito gatilho uma vez que os entrevistadores que não palatalizam aparecem mais favorecedores da palatalização. E quanto à variável sonoridade, o fator surdo foi o que mais motivou a palatalização nos grupos geográficos analisados. Em ambas as rodas tal fator mostrou-se mais motivador para a palatalização. E a posição da sílaba tônica, manifestaram mais favoráveis a aplicação da palatalização das oclusivas dentais a postônica não final e a pretônica. Os dados da análise acústica revelam a existência de gradientes entre a produção entre a forma plena e o padrão inovador, o que sugere uma mudança em progresso.
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Lin, Tai-Ming, and 林泰名. "Pronunciation Variation Modeling and Analysis Including Integration with Speaker Adaptation Techniques for Mandarin Broadcast News." Thesis, 2003. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/65560022060084186925.
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Hsu, Cheng-Wei, and 徐正威. "Deep Variational Manifold Learning for Speaker Recognition." Thesis, 2016. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70447897972759145747.
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碩士國立交通大學
電機工程學系
105
Traditionally, speaker recognition system using i-vector as the speaker feature vector and the probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA) as the scoring function has achieved state-of-the-art performance in many tasks. PLDA is seen as a linear model which is trained under the assumption that the same speaker shares a common low dimensional latent variable space where i-vectors of all speakers are transformed and represented in this space. No discriminative learning is performed. PLDA is estimated according to the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm by maximizing the likelihood using a whole set of training data. Basically, the speaker model based on PLDA may be constrained due to the linear assumption, shallow representation, high dimensionality, non-discriminative and batch learning. In this study, we propose a deep manifold neural network to deal with these constraints. A deep latent variable model based on the variational auto-encoder is incorporated to conduct the discriminative manifold learning and scoring for speaker recognition. Manifold learning aims to learn for a low-dimensional representation from its high-dimensional observation data, e.g. i-vector, where the objective for neighbor embedding is optimized. Speaker label can be introduced to enforce those observations in low-dimensional space to be close within the same speaker and apart across different speakers. To further strengthen the system performance, such a supervised manifold learning can be realized as a deep latent variable model due to twofold considerations. First, deep neural network is considered to reflect the complicated characteristics within speakers and between speakers. Secondly, a latent variable model is considered to explore the latent structure and compensate the uncertainty region of a deep model which is trained via a stochastic back-propagation algorithm from mini-batches of speaker utterances. To tackle these considerations, we develop a deep variational manifold learning for speaker recognition. The variational inference is implemented to carry out a latent variable speaker model. Importantly, we develop a new manifold learning framework based on a variational auto-encoder (VAE). This VAE consists of an encoder which transforms the original data into latent variables and a decoder which projects the latent features back to the recovered data. The nonlinear mapping between high-dimensional observation and low-dimensional latent variable is learned to faithfully reflect intra and inter speaker characteristics. We also mimic a PLDA model by imposing a linear transformation in the decoding step of VAE. The means and variances of latent variables are estimated from the training i-vectors by maximizing the variational lower bound of log likelihood function. A shared neural network for different speakers is established accordingly. In particular, we introduce a Bernoulli variable to indicate the class information of each pair of i-vectors and use this latent variable to express the attraction and the repulsion for those low-dimensional samples within the same speaker and between two different speakers, respectively. Correspondingly, we build a stochastic neighbor embedding approach by using a neural network as encoder and a linear transform as decoder. A hybrid generative and discriminative model is constructed for deep manifold learning and applied for i-vector based speaker recognition. The proposed method is evaluated by the experiments on speaker recognition based on the NIST i-vector Machine Learning Challenge.
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Shaver, Clark D. "Effects of equipment variations on speaker recognition error rates." 2009. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/etd/Shaver_okstate_0664M_10618.pdf.
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Gu, Jhen-Jhan, and 辜振展. "Gender and Age Recognitions of Speakers Improved by Tone-Variation Characteristics." Thesis, 2013. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/34047733292960887317.
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碩士國立中正大學
電機工程研究所
101
In this work, we adopt arousal intensity based on tone-variation characteristics to improve gender and age recognitions. During the study, we employ technical methods which gradually approach our goal systematically. The recognition steps include database building with pre-processing, feature extraction with characteristic analyses, arousal triggered by tone-variation, feature selection and recognition. In the beginning, we consider tone-variation characteristics because of the speech signals have the mood of a speaker. Speakers’ utterances with emotions are analyzed to identify their gender and age where the recognition engine utilizes a Support Vector Machine (SVM). According to the experimental results, the accuracies of gender and age recognitions under a low-arousal emotion tend to be worse and better than those under a high-arousal emotion, respectively. Restated, gender and age recognitions are likely to adopt high and low arousal intensities of emotions, respectively. In practical applications, a specific emotion may not appear in a speaker’s utterance. Hence, according to tone-variation characteristics, speech frames of a speaker’s utterance are classified into two groups which are above and below the mean of arousal intensities of speech frames. After that, due to the difference of speakers’ utterances, we adopt Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) where Probability Density Function (PDF) models the distribution of arousal intensities of speech frames. In order to get better modeling curve, we choose several numbers of Gaussian distributions, and make a good use of feature selection methods. Our experiments reveal that gender and age recognitions can be better than those without considering arousal inspired and feature selection by 1.7% and 10.8% improvements, respectively. Moreover, the accuracies of gender and age recognitions can reach 98.9% and 71.6%, and especially 99% and 72.5% under the condition that arousal intensities are classified by three GMMs, respectively. In the experiments, we use many databases to verify our method so that the proposed approaches and experimental results are fair and reliability. Furthermore, compared with features, approaches and accuracy of the prior art, our work get better performance to a certain extent. In the future, the proposed gender and age recognitions can be beneficial to human-computer interface and multimedia applications.
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Enríquez, García Ildara. "Variation and clitic placement among Galician neofalantes." Thesis, 2017. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca//handle/1828/8424.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines variation in clitic placement among neofalantes—a speech community of urban, L2 speakers of Galician, in a bilingual region in Northwestern Spain (Dubert 2005; Freixeiro Mato 2014; O’Rourke & Ramallo 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015). Galician has a complex system of pronominal clitics that can be either proclitic or enclitic depending on a range of grammatical factors (e.g. finiteness, sentence type, triggering particles). Among neofalantes, clitic placement is variable, sometimes following the rules of traditional Galician, and sometimes not. Non-traditional clitic placement has been criticized as one of the most salient “errors” in neofalante speech, both by speakers and by linguists (Dubert 2005; González-González 2008). Due to language contact, the bilingual nature of the region and the genetic proximity of Galician and Spanish, most research has argued that non-traditional clitic use results from Spanish influence (e.g. Kabatek 1997; Dubert 2005). However, to date, no empirical research has targeted neofalante clitic usage to test this assertion. To probe possible contact effects, this thesis is based on accountable variationist analysis of pronominal clitics (N = 3,736) in the vernacular of 15 neofalantes. Overall results reveal that the vast majority of tokens follow traditional Galician grammar, suggesting that neofalantes are relatively good at mastering Galician clitic placement. However, variation is not evenly distributed. Where proclitic placement follows traditional grammar at a rate that approaches categoricity (98.6%, N = 2,036), nearly 40% of enclitic tokens conflict with traditional grammar (39.2%, N = 1,700). Logistic regression suggests that variation is largely isolated to those contexts where Galician and Spanish differ (e.g. finiteness (+/-), where finite verbs favour non-traditional placement), lending support to previous claims. However, social predictors are also relevant, with speakers who have Galician parents and who were born after the implementation of bilingual education favouring non-traditional placement as well. These results suggest that other sociolinguistic factors, such as the need to assert
one’s Galician identity, can also impact clitic placement.Graduate
2018-07-31
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"Phonological variation of consonants by Hong Kong Cantonese speakers of English: a sociolinguistic perspective." Thesis, 2011. http://library.cuhk.edu.hk/record=b6075323.
Full textAbstract:
Leung, Ming Ming Grace.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-277).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstract also in Chinese.
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Points, Kathleen M. "Language use in East Austin, Texas." 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/21194.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation presents a study of African American and Hispanic speakers in East Austin, Texas, an area that has been historically segregated and is now experiencing rapid gentrification. The current literature is lacking research on minority participation in sound change. This dissertation contributes to redressing the deficit in this area by describing data from sociolinguistic interviews with African American and Hispanic speakers; the following questions are considered: How do social variables influence a linguistic system? How do the social pressures of gentrification influence linguistic variables? To what extent do minority speakers participate in sound changes present in the majority group's variety of English? Specifically, it considers GOOSE and GOAT fronting and the relative positions of LOT and THOUGHT. It has previously been suggested that only Anglo speakers participate in changes affecting these vowels. With regard to GOOSE and GOAT, in many varieties of Southern English, the back vowels become fronted in Anglo speech while they remain backed in African American and Hispanic speech (e.g., Thomas, 2001a). However, the findings discussed here show that African American and Hispanic speakers may front these vowels to achieve particular stylistic purposes. With regard to LOT and THOUGHT, these vowel classes have merged, or are undergoing merger, in many regions of the United States (Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006). In Texas, Anglo and Hispanic speakers exhibit the LOT~THOUGHT merger while African American speakers reportedly do not and in general resist the merger (Bailey, Wikle, & Sand, 1991; Bernstein, 1993; Labov et al., 2006; Thomas, 2001a). The findings presented here suggest a trend for LOT~THOUGHT moving towards merger among African American speakers in Central Texas. This is unexpected among African American speakers in Texas and in the U.S. at large. The findings presented illustrate the importance of ethnically diverse samples in describing speech. In Texas where there is a large population of Hispanic residents, we cannot claim to have a thorough knowledge of the regional variety of English without investigating minority speakers. The analysis presented here is a step towards describing a more diverse data set of regional American English.text
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"/n/ and /l/ variation in onset position in English and Cantonese by Hong Kong Cantonese speakers of English." 2008. http://library.cuhk.edu.hk/record=b5893659.
Full textAbstract:
Leung, Ming Ming Grace.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-150).
Abstracts in English and Chinese; includes Chinese characters in appendix.
ABSTRACT (ENGLISH) --- p.i
ABSTRACT (CHINESE) --- p.ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv
Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1.1. --- Background to this Study --- p.1
Chapter 1.2. --- Purpose and Significance of this Study --- p.2
Chapter 1.3. --- Organization of the Thesis --- p.3
Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter 2.1. --- Introduction --- p.5
Chapter 2.2. --- /n/ and /l/ in English and Cantonese --- p.5
Chapter 2.3. --- /n/ and /l/ Variation in Cantonese --- p.6
Chapter 2.4. --- /n/ and /l/ Variation in Hong Kong English --- p.7
Chapter 2.5. --- Language Transfer --- p.10
Chapter 2.6. --- English Perception and Production by L2 Speakers --- p.20
Chapter 2.7. --- Task Type --- p.34
Chapter 2.8. --- Linguistic Environment --- p.40
Chapter 2.9. --- Language Proficiency --- p.43
Chapter 2.10. --- Summary --- p.45
Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- METHODOLOGY
Chapter 3.1. --- Introduction --- p.48
Chapter 3.2. --- Research Questions --- p.48
Chapter 3.3. --- Research Methodology --- p.50
Chapter 3.3.1. --- Participants --- p.50
Chapter 3.3.2. --- Materials and Procedure --- p.50
Chapter 3.3.3. --- Data Recording and Data Transcription --- p.56
Chapter 3.3.4. --- "Data Coding, Data Scoring and Data Analysis" --- p.56
Chapter 3.4. --- Summary --- p.57
Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- FINDINGS
Chapter 4.1. --- Introduction --- p.59
Chapter 4.2. --- General Results in Descriptive Statistics --- p.60
Chapter 4.2.1. --- General Finding of English Production and Perception --- p.60
Chapter 4.2.1.1. --- Production of /n/and /l/ in Different Task Types --- p.63
Chapter 4.2.1.2. --- Production of /n/ and /l/ in Different Following Linguistic Environments --- p.66
Chapter 4.2.1.3. --- Production of /n/ and /l/ with the Presence of a Second /n/ --- p.68
Chapter 4.2.1.4. --- Production of /n/ and /l/ by Three Groups of Participants --- p.69
Chapter 4.2.2. --- General Finding of Cantonese Production and Perception --- p.72
Chapter 4.3. --- Results of VARBRUL Statistics --- p.76
Chapter 4.3.1. --- Result of Accurate Production of /n/ --- p.81
Chapter 4.3.2. --- Result of /n/ to /l/ Variation --- p.83
Chapter 4.3.3. --- Result of Accurate Production of /l/ --- p.84
Chapter 4.3.4. --- Result of /l/ to /n/ Variation --- p.85
Chapter 4.4. --- Descriptive and VARBRUL Statistical Results regarding Four Research Questions --- p.87
Chapter 4.4.1. --- Data for Research Question 1: To what extent does /n/ and /l/ variation of Cantonese play a role in /n/ and /l/ variation in the onset positionin English? --- p.88
Chapter 4.4.2. --- Data for Research Question 2: How significant is English perception for English production? --- p.91
Chapter 4.4.3. --- "Data for Research Question 3: How do Cantonese speakers of English perform in different task types (word list, passage, and natural speech) and is task type significant for English production?" --- p.94
Chapter 4.4.4. --- "Data for Research Question 4: Which linguistic and/or non-linguistic factors, such as the linguistic environment, the presence of a second /n/ within the same syllable, and English proficiency/university major, may have an influence on /n/ and /l/ production in English?" --- p.95
Chapter 4.5. --- Summary --- p.99
Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- DISCUSSION
Chapter 5.1. --- Introduction --- p.100
Chapter 5.2. --- Research Question 1: To what extent does /n/ and /l/ variation of Cantonese play a role in /n/ and /l/ variation in the onset position in English? --- p.100
Chapter 5.2.1. --- Discussion about /n/ and /l/ Variation in Cantonese --- p.101
Chapter 5.2.2. --- Discussion about /n/ and /l/ Variation in English --- p.109
Chapter 5.2.3. --- Transfer of /n/ and /l/ Variation in Cantonese to /n/ and /l/ variationin English --- p.113
Chapter 5.3. --- Research Question 2: How significant is English perception for English production? --- p.117
Chapter 5.4. --- "Research Question 3: How do Cantonese speakers of English perform in different task types (word list，passage, and natural speech) and is task type significant for English production?" --- p.124
Chapter 5.5. --- "Research Question 4: Which linguistic and/or non-linguistic factors, such as the linguistic environment, the presence of a second /n/ within the same syllable, and English proficiency/university major, may have an influence on /n/ and /l/ production in English?" --- p.128
Chapter 5.6. --- Summary --- p.137
Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- CONCLUSION
Chapter 6.1. --- Introduction --- p.142
Chapter 6.1.1. --- Pedagogical Implication --- p.142
Chapter 6.1.2. --- Limitations of the Current Study --- p.144
Chapter 6.1.3. --- Suggestions for Further Studies --- p.145
REFERENCES --- p.147
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX D
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Liu, Pei-Xin, and 劉佩鑫. "A Study of the Variation of the Use of cos/because by Native and Non-native Speakers of English." Thesis, 2009. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/x4jfxh.
Full textAbstract:
碩士靜宜大學
英國語文學系研究所
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This aim of this research is to examine how the use of cos/because by eight native, four near-native and ten non-native speakers of English are accounted for by various internal linguistic factors and external social factors. The data was collected from conversations with the participants. The quantitative VARBRUL rule analysis was conducted through GoldVarb 3.0 to analyze the spoken data. The results of this study showed that speakers tended to use cos as non-subordinator while because was generally used as subordinator. However, the research showed that it was not age, sex, English proficiency and social networks that influenced how speakers used cos/because, but their personal speaking style. Some speakers used cos more often to shorten the social distance if his/her interlocutors used it frequently while others used cos more often when talking about personal feelings. Moreover, there was also a direct correlation between English proficiency and the use of cos/because; non-native and near-native speakers used cos much less than native-speakers, in some cases not at all. This can be accounted for by two factors: lack of authenticity, and lack of communicative competence in an EFL learning environment. The findings of this study are significant in terms of discovering how linguistic and social factors affect the use of cos/because, as well as in providing English teachers with a better understanding of what should be covered in their teaching.
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Julca, Guerrero Felix Claudio. "Variación dialectal del Quechua en el Callejón de Huaylas desde las perspectivas de la lingüística y de los hablantes." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2010-05-1020.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation presents a description and analysis of local variation of Quechua in the Huaylas Valley from speakers’ and linguistic perspectives. This research focuses on the comparative study of Quechua spoken in the Huaylas Valley, located in the north-central Peruvian Andes, which exhibits interesting variation in the phonological, morphological and lexical levels. For the analysis I have used methodologies of descriptive, comparative and historical linguistics, and methods of sociolinguistics. Thus, the study of Quechua language variation in this region in relation to pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary is contrasted and complemented with speakers’ perception about their variety and other variants.
Quechua-speaking areas are surveyed by grouping provinces, and are delineated on maps according to distribution of phonological and morphological isoglosses, and vocabulary as well as Quechua speakers’ perception. The two main dialectal areas are: (1) South Huaylas or Hallqa spoken in the provinces of Huaraz, Recuay, and south of Carhuaz, which is characterized, basically, by the retention of the phoneme /h/ at the word initial position. (2) North Huaylas or Quechua spoken in the provinces of Huaylas, Yungay, and north-central part of Carhuaz, which is characterized by the deletion of *h > ø at the word initial position. The division line is located around the Marcara river by the White Mountain side, and Huasca Uran ravine by the Black Mountain side, in the Marcara district, Carhuaz. Within each major variety there are other minor varieties, which are distinguished on the basis of morphophonemic variation of suffixes: ablative, first person inclusive, and the conjectural enclitic.text
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"Subject Pronoun Expression in an L2-only Environment: The Case of Equatorial Guinea." Doctoral diss., 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.57210.
Full textAbstract:
abstract: Subject Pronoun Expression (SPE) has been extensively studied in monolingual and bilingual varieties of Spanish using the variationist framework. The goal of these studies has been to examine the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that condition the expression and the omission of personal subject pronouns. Nonetheless, to date, there is no study of SPE in the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea, the only African country where it is an official language, and the single country where Spanish is exclusively a second language (L2). This dissertation fills this gap in the literature by accounting for SPE in Equatoguinean Spanish.
The research questions guiding this study concern the rates of Subject Pronoun Expression, its conditioning factors, and universal accounts of L2 acquisition, in particular, the Interface Hypothesis (IH). The study had 30 participants from Malabo, who took part in sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the mixed effects software Rbrul. Along the lines of the literature reviewed, the linguistic factor groups studied were grammatical person and number, reference, reflexivity, verb type, and ambiguity. By the same token, the extra linguistic factors analyzed were age, sex, education, native language (L1), and speaker as a random factor.
The results indicate that the Equatoguinean variety of Spanish has one of the lowest pronoun rates (19.1%), a finding that goes against the predictions of the IH. With regard to the linguistic factor groups that condition Subject Pronoun Expression, Equatoguinean Spanish shows an unorthodox ranking: grammatical person and number, ambiguity, verb class, and reference. Interestingly, the low ranking of reference gives support to the IH, which argues that L2 speakers have problems with constraints like the switch of the reference in subjects because it integrates discourse and pragmatic interfaces. The only significant extra-linguistic factor was education, whereas speakers’ L1 exerted no effect on SPE. Individual speaker was a significant random factor group, indicating that variation is great even in speakers with comparable education.
In sum, this study of a unique speech community provides new information on SPE of L2 Spanish. It also contributes to the fields of language contact, language variation, and second language acquisition.Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2020
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Dyson, Bronwen P. "Developmental style in second language processing : a study of inter-learner variation in the acquisition of English as a second language." Thesis, 2004. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/817.
Full textAbstract:
Research into how learners acquire second language has established that there are developmental stages but has not established the nature of variation within these stages. On the basis of a longitudinal study of the speech of six learners acquiring English as a Second Language (ESL), this thesis investigates the proposals which have been made about variation in stages within the paradigm established by the Multidimensional Model (MDM). Of particular interest is the variational option hypothesis in Processability Theory (PT), the theoretical framework of this thesis. The findings indicate that these variational options and the variational features are not satisfactory in three main respects. They are based on a theoretical construct which makes problematic assumptions about the learner’s knowledge of the second language, they do not reliably predict variation and they exclude important aspects of variation. This thesis proposes a new approach termed ‘developmental style’ which suggests that learner orientation at each stage can be defined in terms of a learner’s lexical or grammatical orientation. The findings demonstrate support for the developmental hypothesis and show that learners are consistent in their particular developmental style at the different stages investigated. The results indicate that learners vary in terms of their general grammatical development at any stage. This study also finds that language background, gender and task are variables which need to be controlled (informally) in order to demonstrate developmental styles.
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Spofana, Dumisani Godfrey. "Learners’ texts : a portrayal of the influence of certain varieties of isiXhosa on English texts and vice versa." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/4906.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is about certain varieties of isiXhosa and their apparent influence on English and vice versa. IsiXhosa is a language mainly spoken in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces of the Republic of South Africa. The study concentrates on certain varieties of isiXhosa that are spoken in the Eastern Cape Province. These varieties are isiBhaca, isiHlubi, isiMpondo, isiThembu and isiGcaleka. IsiGcaleka happens to be the standard variety. A map is provided to illustrate where these varieties are spoken.
The study looks at the learners’ texts which are written in isiXhosa and English. The learners who wrote these texts are in Grades 8 and 9 from selected schools in the areas of Mzimkhulu, Matatiele, Mbizana, Ngcobo and Butterworth. It is worth mentioning that Mzimkhulu has since been moved from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu/Natal. The learners’ texts are analyzed and comments are provided for each analysis. The study also looks at how educators in selected schools relate with their learners when teaching both isiXhosa and English. Observations are made from the relationship between the educators and learners when the learners are taught isiXhosa and English.
The study also looks at the debate between standard and non-standard variety. Based on the discussion of both the standard variety and non-standard variety it is the view of the researcher that this notion of “standard” and “non-standard” needs to be challenged on all fronts. This is so because standardization occurs as a result of historical coincidence. The study further looks at the Language and Planning issues in the Republic of South Africa. It is important to note that language is the key to the heart of any nation and therefore whatever that is discussed about language should be sensitive to the people speaking that language.The study concludes with the fact that there is a need to train educators especially those who are going to teach African Languages. There is also a need to undertake studies on learners’ needs so that those who design the school curricula must do so knowing what is relevant to the learners in general.African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)