Immigrant nurses may walk into the cardiac room with the same credentials as everyone else, yet discover that their authority is questioned when their voice does. This article begins with a cardiac alert in which a patient's "Where are you from?" cuts through the alarms, and follows that question to ask how institutional legitimacy is translated-or stalled-at the level of vowels, cadence, and bedside speech. Working with Goffman's theatre of everyday life, Carper's aesthetic way of knowing, Cavarero's philosophy of the voice, and Bourdieu's account of linguistic authority, I trace how "professional seriousness" is taught, rehearsed, and auditioned through sound rather than policy. Empirical studies of accent bias in healthcare share the stage with immigrant nurses who slow their speech, straighten their posture, and trim their idioms to match an unspoken standard of "neutral" American English. The paper then turns to Camp, through Sontag, Babuscio, Meyer, and Muñoz, to read professional seriousness as a role, a costume, a script that some can slip into unnoticed while others must over-rehearse. From this vantage point, immigrant nurses become both actors and directors of their clinical presence, inhabiting required forms of seriousness while quietly bending them. The final act considers the ethical cost of this continuous performance and argues that the real scene change must occur at the institutional level, where listening practices and ideals of seriousness can be rewritten to recognize authority in more than one voice.

Abstract Non-inherent adjectives have been defined as attributive-only adjectives that cannot characterize the noun they precede (Bolinger 1967. Adjectives in English: Attribution and predication. Lingua 18. 1–34: 1). These adjectives have been comprehensively analyzed in relation to nouns (Levi 1978. The syntax and semantics of complex nominals . London: Academic Press), but their relation with other word-classes, namely adverbs, remains unexplored. Corpus studies of non-inherent adjectives with adverbial meaning are scarce, and the evidence provided is limited to particular sets of adjectives (Ghesquière and Davidse 2011. The development of intensification scales in noun-intensifying uses of adjectives: Sources, paths and mechanisms of change. English Language and Linguistics 15(2). 251–277) or on these adjectives in specific registers (Pavlíčková 2014. On the indirectness of non-inherent adjectives. In Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová & Milada Walková (eds.), English matters IV: A collection of papers , 34–41. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita v Prešove). Thus, based on the analysis of 53,737 bigrams extracted by lemma from the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English , the present research provides evidence of non-inherent adjectives with adverbial meaning. The results present quantitative and qualitative data that demonstrate that non-inherent adjectives convey several adverbial meanings, including process, degree , or time location , among others. Qualitative data show the relevance of semantics in the ability of the adjective to develop non-inherent senses and the influence of other syntactic features of the noun phrase. The evidence provided adds to the description of non-inherent adjectives and shows that these lexical units could be relevant in a wider framework such as the adjective/adverb interface.

This study investigates cross-cultural and cross-linguistic vocal emotion recognition by testing American English and French listeners (Listener Language) listening to vocal emotions produced in Dutch and Korean (Speaker Language). Both listener groups recognized all emotions above chance, except for Pride in Korean by American English listeners (0.08), thereby supporting the Universality hypothesis (Elfenbein, H. A. 2013. Nonverbal dialects and accents in facial expressions of emotion. Emotion Review 5(1). 90-96). However, we did not find consistent patterns for Cultural Proximity (Elfenbein, H. A. & N. Ambady 2003a. Cultural similarity's consequences: A distance perspective on cross-cultural differences in emotion recognition. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 34(1). 92-110, 2002b. On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 128(2). 203-235), as both groups of listeners performed similarly on average in both recordings. Likewise, the Prosodic Proximity hypothesis was not supported by our data, since French listeners did not outperform American English listeners in recognizing emotions in Korean, although French and Korean obviously share basic prosodic structures. Instead, the effect of culture and language was emotion-specific, varying across Speaker Language and/or Listener Language. Additionally, despite the significant impact of the emotional dimensions of arousal, valence, and basicness on recognition accuracy, these dimensions did not consistently predict accuracy, since individual emotions deviated from the general patterns of accuracy due to emotion-specific features. Together, these findings provide a more nuanced perspective on the relative contributions of universality, culture, language, and emotional dimensions to cross-cultural emotion recognition, especially for listeners unfamiliar with the target language.

This study explores prosodically driven perceptual adjustment of a non-contrastive coarticulatory feature. Specifically, it examines how prosodic prominence and information structure influence the perception of anticipatory vowel nasalization in CVN in American English as a cue to an upcoming nasal consonant. Using a two-alternative forced-choice task, we tested whether the same acoustic degree of nasalization is interpreted differently depending on prosodic and information-structural contexts, and whether these effects are consistent across native English speakers and Korean learners of English. Listeners identified target words (Bob or bomb) from a nasalization continuum embedded in carrier sentences ("(No,) Riley wrote Bob/bomb slowly"), where the coda consonant was masked by noise. Prosodic prominence was manipulated by adjusting pitch and amplitude of surrounding words while keeping the target constant; and information structure was manipulated by including or omitting No, signaling contrastive focus. For a given stimulus, listeners gave more nasal responses (bomb) when the target was prosodically prominent or preceded by No, implying that they compensate for reduced vowel nasality in these contexts. The fact that No influenced perception independent of prosody suggests that information structure can modulate perceptual compensation beyond acoustic-prosodic cues, reflecting a top-down effect of discourse meaning. Finally, although Korean listeners gave fewer nasal responses overall-possibly due to reliance on acoustic detail or perceptual hypercorrection-both groups showed similar sensitivity to prosodic and information-structural cues. These findings taken together point toward a shared perceptual mechanism in both native and non-native perception that integrates fine-grained phonetic detail with prosodic and information-structural contexts.

To date, deaf children with deaf parents have been assumed to experience "typical" first language acquisition while deaf children from hearing families have often been excluded from research due to limited language exposure in early life. The present study eschews these assumptions and examines language development across these two populations asking whether the use of a signed language at home, the use of a signed language at school, and the family's socioeconomic status or education level can predict deaf children's fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Language and familial background data were collected from 96 preschoolers (age: 5years) and 58 middle schoolers (age range: 11-15years) in the United States. Deaf children of deaf parents reached higher proficiency in both ASL and English than those from hearing families when compared as groups, but there was considerable overlap in language proficiency between the two groups which was associated with the language environments in children's homes for preschoolers and children's schools for middle schoolers. Socioeconomic status and parent education were associated with English proficiency for deaf children of hearing parents, and with ASL proficiency for deaf children of deaf parents.

This study tested whether dysphonic voice quality reduces vowel recognition in noise in school-age children compared to that in adults. We also examined whether perceptual and acoustic indices of dysphonia, which included Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) ratings and cepstral peak prominence (CPP), could predict recognition accuracy across listeners. Participants were 26 children (aged 8-17 years, M = 12.8) and 13 adults (aged 18-21 years, M = 20.6), all native English speakers with normal hearing. Listeners identified 11 American English vowels in an /hVd/ context, produced by three female talkers with typical voices and three with dysphonia, confirmed by laryngologist diagnosis. Stimuli were presented in speech-shaped noise matched to each talker's long-term spectrum at -6 dB and -9 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Each vowel was presented three times per condition, once per talker, yielding equal numbers of trials across voice quality and SNR. CAPE-V ratings of overall severity and strain were obtained from expert listeners, and CPP was extracted from vowel tokens using established acoustic procedures. Recognition accuracy was reduced at poorer SNRs and dysphonia compared with typical voices. Overall, adults outperformed children. In the child group, recognition improved with age, but this developmental advantage was attenuated for dysphonic voices. Greater CAPE-V severity and strain ratings predicted poorer recognition across groups, and higher CPP values were associated with better performance. Dysphonic voice quality significantly constrains children's vowel recognition in noise, consistent with reduced access to source-related acoustic detail that supports developmental improvement. These results highlight the combined importance of teachers' vocal health and classroom acoustics in supporting children's speech perception and learning.

Language provides a window onto how people conceptualize their subjective experiences, including emotions. Although rare, linguistic analyses that go beyond emotion words provide deep insights into emotional experience across cultures. In this study, we explored cultural models of emotion prevalent in the United States and Belgium using verbal descriptions of recent emotional events collected in 2020-2022 from speakers of North American (U.S.) English and Belgian Dutch in the form of semistructured interviews. We analyzed the interviews using three complementary approaches: (1) topic modeling to characterize content, (2) word counting to examine linguistic resources, and (3) inductive analysis to uncover broader themes. Our findings revealed notable cultural differences alongside some similarities. U.S. English speakers used more first-person pronouns and emotion words, emphasized high-arousal emotions, and prioritized asserting personal achievements and openly expressing their feelings. In contrast, Belgian Dutch speakers' descriptions reflected a more moderated approach to emotion, illustrating how social standards and broader worldviews gave meaning to the events, with the use of fewer first-person pronouns and more language focused on relativization and comparison. These differences are unlikely to be fully explained by differences in language structure or the analytical tools used. Our observations are consistent with previous psychological research on U.S. and Belgian culture. At the same time, our samples came only from California and Flanders, respectively, and had no recent history of immigration, potentially limiting the generalizability of our findings. We evaluate our approach against other means of exploring the conceptualization of emotion across cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

We introduce childeswordfreq, an R-based tool for extracting frequency data from the CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) database. This tool provides researchers with the ability to efficiently analyze word and phrase frequencies across multiple languages and speaker roles within the CHILDES database. The resulting frequency measures can be used for stimulus selection in experimental studies and for analyzing patterns in child language development. To illustrate the tool's utility, we conducted a case study using items from the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (EOWPVT-4), comparing their frequencies in CHILDES with adult-based Subtitle-based Word Frequency Database for American English estimates to assess how input frequency differs between child and adult linguistic environments. The childeswordfreq package provides an accessible route for incorporating information on how frequently words are used in child-directed speech into research workflows. The results of our case study highlight why such access is critical. The CHILDES and SUBTLEX-US frequencies diverged in patterned ways tied to developmental progression, with earlier items on the EOWPVT-4 being overrepresented in child-directed speech and later items being more prominent in an adult corpus. These findings demonstrate how adult norms can diverge from frequency distributions relevant for acquisition. By grounding analyses in child-based input patterns, childeswordfreq strengthens developmental interpretations and supports more ecologically aligned research. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.32273607.

ABSTRACT Background The Uniform Information Density hypothesis holds that healthy speakers minimize cognitive effort by distributing information relatively evenly within utterances, for example by inserting optional low-information words before particularly informative ones. Language production in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease has often been found to be reduced in informational content. Whether individuals with Alzheimer’s disease tend to distribute information evenly within utterances is currently unknown. Aims The current study examines how information is distributed within utterances of individuals with and without Alzheimer’s disease, taking into account cognitive functioning and utterance length. Specifically, we tested whether individuals with Alzheimer’s disease differed from healthy controls in terms of information load of words, as estimated using Large Language Models (Aim 1), and in terms of the degree of uniformity in information density within utterances (Aim 2). Methods & Procedures We analyzed transcriptions of picture descriptions (the “cookie theft” picture) from American English speakers with (N = 78) and without (N = 77) Alzheimer’s disease in the DementiaBank data repository. We used Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs) to investigate how Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores modulate surprisal (a measure of information load of words in context) and uniformity of information density (estimated word-to-word, as well as averaged for entire utterances), taking into account utterance length, content word frequency, and the proportion of content vs. function words. Outcomes & Results We find that MMSE scores are predictive of both the amount and the distribution of information in utterances, when controlling for utterance length: Uniformity in information load increases as cognitive functioning decreases. We discuss our findings in the context of prior work on characteristic information profiles of different types of dementia and aphasia and on the relationship between uniformity of information density and cognitive functioning. Conclusions With decreasing cognitive function, utterances of picture descriptions tend to show reduced information load (manifesting as higher lexical frequency) and increased uniformity in information load; each of these patterns is modulated by utterance length. The mechanisms underlying these patterns may reflect constraints of language production in the face of limited cognitive resources.

ABSTRACT Socially prescriptive speech technologies (SPSTs) are technologies that claim to provide feedback to speakers about how other humans perceive their speech and communication style, based on algorithms trained on a set of static, prescriptive standards. Such systems are increasingly integrated into popular videoconferencing programs like Zoom and Microsoft Teams and are being used to score and judge employee performance across conversational contexts and domains. The current study evaluates the design, promises, and performance of two such systems, the Zoom revenue accelerator (ZRA) and Read AI, and discusses the theoretical and practical limitations of software that evaluates speech based on opaque standards of idealized speech. The paper then presents the results of a laboratory experiment designed to test whether the systems provide fair and realistic feedback to a diverse group of American English speakers. Results of linear mixed effects regression (LMER) models testing scores for “sentiment” and “engagement” indicate that both programs systematically provide lower for non‐White speakers. Additionally, for sentiment, Read AI shows a bias toward L1 English speakers, while the ZRA shows a bias against L1 speakers. The systems also claim to evaluate the use of fillers, speech rates, and offensive speech, but they do by employing opaque metrics and coarse standards not based on psycholinguistic or sociolinguistic research. The ZRA rated 99% of speakers in this sample as employing too many fillers, and 78.4% as using a speech rate that was too fast. Read AI negatively evaluated 58% of participants who self‐identified as neurodivergent, on the basis that the speakers used terms that the system flagged as “non‐inclusive” language. Overall, the results of this study show that SPST systems do not provide realistic, contextually appropriate feedback to users. This study acts as a first step in understanding the mechanisms and standards employed in SPSTs, and provides a discussion of the linguistic, social, and ethical limitations of such systems as their use expands across employment and educational contexts.

ABSTRACT This study examines the notion of ‘neutral English’ among Filipino online English teachers (OETs) in the online English teaching industry. Drawing on interviews and classroom observations of 28 Filipino OETs, the study uses the framework Unequal Englishes to analyze how teachers understand and negotiate ‘neutral English’ in their professional contexts. Findings show that teachers frame neutrality in multiple ways: as closely aligned with American English, as a flexible hybrid register, and as a less intimidating form of English for learners. These framings suggest that ‘neutral English’ functions as a condition of employability, a corporate branding strategy, and a pedagogical resource within a neoliberal and native-speakerist industry that markets Filipino teachers as affordable, near-native speakers.

ABSTRACT While BrE and AmE are preferably standardized in formal EFL educational programs, questions remain about how EFL learners perceive, prefer, and use English in real-world communication. This study investigated the perceptions and uses of English among 316 Vietnamese English majors from three public universities. The research instruments included a questionnaire, a vocabulary test, and Vietnamese-to-English translation items. The findings showed that AmE constituted most of the participants’ English input, preference, and perceived acquisition, compared to humble presence of Asian Englishes. Besides, the test responses revealed their tendency to blend BrE and AmE synonyms and morphosyntactic rules, particularly with a larger but inconsistent selection of AmE vocabulary. Meanwhile, the use of past tenses and deontic modality generally reflected British grammar. Distinctive syntactic patterns indicated the influence of both L1 transfer and inconsistent L2 exposure. Pedagogical implications are proposed to enhance EFL teaching practices and deepen understanding of Vietnamese learners’ English use.

ABSTRACT This study investigates how linguistic bias towards second-language (L2) accents emerges within multilingual contexts, focusing on the social evaluation of accented English speech. This study examined attitudes towards Standard American English (SAE) and two second-language (L2) accents. Using a Verbal Guise Technique, evaluations of five accent categories were compared: SAE, weak and strong German accents, and weak and strong French accents. Participants comprised L1 English listeners and French- and German-English bilingual listeners in order to investigate the role of group membership in guiding negative bias. An additional, exploratory aspect of this research was examining how adults rate adult- versus child-speakers. This study found that (1) all L2 accents were dispreferred over SAE, with strong L2 accents being the most negatively evaluated, (2) weak German accents were slightly preferred over weak French accents, and (3) there was no main effect of group membership – all listener groups rated the accents similarly. These findings are interpreted in light of the theoretical claim that language attitudes are influenced by national stereotypes and processing ease of the accent.

This letter proposes that we, speech-language pathology professionals, should stop labeling languages and skills as "differences" with the implication that they are different from General American English (GAE). Instead, we should refer to specific languages by their proper names (e.g., African American English, GAE, Spanish, and French). This letter also highlights how labels can influence individuals' perceptions of a language's legitimacy. This letter is intended to open a dialogue on an important topic rather than provide a comprehensive review or analysis. Considerations that warrant further attention will be highlighted. Referring to languages and skills by their name is necessary for speech-language pathologists, fostering a culture of cognitive and linguistic acceptance rather than facilitating an "othering" tone when describing skills and characteristics that do not reflect a standard or dominant ideology. Consideration of this proposed philosophical shift is needed for the sake of ethical practice.

This study examined vocabulary growth in low-income African American English (AAE)-speaking toddlers aged 30 and 42 months. Specifically, we investigated whether traditional child-level language production, discourse measures, or maternal language input at Time 1 predicted receptive vocabulary growth at Time 2. Language samples were collected from 101 African American toddlers during home-based play interactions with their caregivers at 30 and 42 months. Child and maternal language measures were derived from transcripts using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts, and receptive vocabulary was assessed at both time points using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses examined the predictive value of child- and caregiver-level language variables, including interactions with gender. Children demonstrated substantial vocabulary growth from 30 to 42 months. Caregivers demonstrated responsive, developmentally appropriate language and frequent spontaneous questioning. However, neither traditional syntax measures (mean length of utterance [MLU]) nor culturally relevant measures of discourse (caregivers' use of spontaneous questions to direct discourse and children's responses to questions) significantly predicted vocabulary growth. A marginal trend suggested that the relation between maternal MLU and child vocabulary growth may differ by gender. Although neither syntax nor discourse measures significantly predicted vocabulary, these findings highlight the importance of continuing to examine culturally embedded interaction patterns in AAE-speaking families. The results suggest that broad language measures may obscure variability in the discourse strategies caregivers use to guide and engage children's language and that more fine-grained approaches may be needed to capture how language input supports vocabulary growth across gender and context. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31894576.

ABSTRACT This study examined phonological variation in six EFL textbooks commonly used in Japanese junior high schools. These textbooks featured recurring characters in dialogues, and our analysis of accompanying audio materials assessed whether the characters’ phonological features matched their claimed national origins. Although the textbooks included characters from three to five different countries, five out of the six overwhelmingly favored General American English (GAE). Overall, 74.6% of the characters exhibited GAE features regardless of their stated nationality, and 67.7% of non-American characters displayed GAE phonology rather than features typical of their regions. Only one textbook consistently represented a diverse range of linguistic varieties. These findings suggested that current EFL materials reinforced native-speakerism by presenting GAE as the default pronunciation model, thereby possibly contributing to learner anxiety and the misconception that English belonged exclusively to native speakers. We advocate for more sociolinguistic diversity in English speakers, consistent with Global Englishes and trans-speakerism.

This study scrutinized Morphological drift from the newly borrowed loanword in English language .By the complete analyzation for the Corpus of historical American English (COHA). we investigate how the loanword or the borrowed lexical items (loanword) undergo inflectional adjustment with focusing on the interplay between analogical leveling and morphological regularization, utilizing data spanning from 1900-2019 .This research trace the development of the inflectional pattern or the paradigmatic behavior of 150 borrowed lexical items (loanword ) from different parent(etymological ) languages . The evidence suggested that regularization process prevalent in high frequency context or one could say more dominant, while morphological variability exhibit a low frequency borrowing. This research offering a valuable insight to our understanding for the cognitive mechanism, language contact, and morphological productivity driving language change.

Does Implicit Racial Bias Affect Auditory-Perceptual Evaluations of Dysphonic Voices?

Against the backdrop of deepening global cultural integration, cross-cultural intimacy has emerged as a central narrative thread in North American English queer literature. For the Asian queer community, emotional expression embodies unique and intricate traits, shaped by the interplay of race, culture, and gender identity-each layer weaving into the next to forge a complex emotional tapestry. Taking contemporary North American English queer literature as its focus, this article centers on the authentic emotional experiences of Asian queer individuals in cross-cultural intimate bonds, systematically teasing out their emotional articulations, real-world predicaments, and viable paths toward reconciliation. Drawing upon the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Asian Census, its 2023 official population projections, and empirical insights from the UCLA Williams Institute’s 2021 Special Survey on Asian Pacific Islander Queer Populations, this study delves into how racial, cultural, and gender dynamics exert a profound influence on the emotional formation of Asian queer people. Beyond mere analysis, it further offers a vivid portrayal of the diverse emotional landscape inhabited by Asian queer individuals in contemporary queer literature, illuminating the profound significance that literary narratives bear for their identity formation and emotional expression. In doing so, it seeks to serve as an empirical reference for related fields, including queer literary studies and cross-cultural research.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether nonbinary speakers’ imitation of extended voice onset time (VOT) in word‐initial English /p, t, k/ is impacted by whether they believe they are listening to a nonbinary or binary model speaker. Forty‐five nonbinary American English speakers participated in an online VOT shadowing task, and the results find that nonbinary speakers diverge to a significantly greater degree away from a binary‐identified speaker than a nonbinary‐identified speaker or a speaker whose gender is not identified. Social information can impact the degree to which one speaker phonetically converges with another speaker, and nonbinary speakers have been shown to alter their speech due to their social environment, specifically when there is a threat of being misgendered. These patterns suggest that spaces that are not identified as nonbinary‐inclusive present a social threat for nonbinary speakers, thus motivating them to shift their linguistic productions depending on social context.