English Speech Research Articles

Effect of Face Masks on Speech Intelligibility

With the advent of COVID, the wearing of face covering has been obligatory in both medical and everyday life. This paper describes three experiments undertaken to establish the effect of face coverings on speech sound power, speech directivity and speech intelligibility. The experiments used two different approaches acoustic measurements and word scores. The face coverings assessed were a 'standard blue' surgical mask, a typical fabric mask, and a plastic transparent visor. The results showed that non-native English speakers had by far the most difficulty in comprehending the English language speech when face coverings were worn in speech intelligibility tests, as measured using phonetically balanced word lists. All the masks were found to noticeably affect speech intelligibility, with the surgical mask having the least detrimental effect. The results are also compared to objective measurements of their physical acoustics characteristics to establish their performance.

PENDAMPINGAN PIDATO BAHASA INGGRIS BAGI ANGGOTA IPPNU RANTING SIMBANG KULON

Teenage years is time to begin preparing teenagers future life, they need foundation for being organized person. That was why joining organization was one of good ways. One of the organization which is provided for teenage female, is IPPNU. By joining an organization, they can manage their time, their leadership will be developed and they would be cooperative. Annually, there are some event which are hold to give the opportunity for the members to perform their ability, one of them is PORSENI. However, when joining this event, they have less confidence. That is why, an accompaniment needs to be held, especially on performing English Speech. This agenda was held in three stages, they are modelling, practice, and feedback. The lecturer gave example on how to write English speech and perform it. Then, the participants practiced writing the speech and performed it. Finally, the lecturer gave feedback on their performance. The result of this agenda showed that the participants were enthusiastic for doing the practice, they got improvement. It was proved when they joined the English Speech Competition in PORSENI, one of them became the 2nd runner up.

Multiple Components of Flow: Influences on Learner Perception and Learning in Classroom Activity

Consistent with the growing interest in positive psychology, positive emotions such as grit, resilience, and flow have gained attention in L2 research. Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) flow refers to the optimal human experience in which one feels cognitively efficient and emotionally happy. Existing L2 research applied flow in L2 learning, yet due to the inconsistencies in conceptualization and methodology, there is a need to further explore the nature of flow. To address this gap, the present study investigates how flow is constituted by examining the underlying structures of diverse cognitive and emotional experiences of flow. It also explores how these experiences predict learners’ perceived success in classroom activities and in their learning outcomes. Forty-four college students participated in a classroom activity where they practiced English speech patterns. Once they completed the activity, they completed a questionnaire about their task experience that asked about seven dimensions of the flow experience. These were based on Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) theorization of flow, including both cognitive and affective dimensions such as the merge of action and awareness, concentration, and intrinsic enjoyment. The learning outcome was measured via their score differences in the pretest and the posttest. The results showed that various dimensions of flow experience exist independently, which suggests the need to consider multiple sensations of flow in researching flow. Furthermore, regarding flow components and learning, the study found that only intrinsic enjoyment significantly predicted learners’ perception of their success in the activity. However, the study failed to find any components of flow that predicted learning outcomes.

Rhetorical Analysis of King Abdullah's English Speeches during the Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper analyses King Abdullah's II English speeches during the Covid-19 crisis in a corpus-based study. It investigates the rhetorical techniques employed by the King to convince the audience. The data include 14 English speeches (8,694 words) delivered by King Abdullah II of Jordan during the Covid-19 crisis, from January 2020 to August 2021. The rhetorical analysis is based on the classical Aristotelian classification of rhetoric. It examines one canon of rhetoric, invention. In the analyzing invention, the speaker's ethical appeals (ethos), emotional appeals (pathos), and logical appeals (logos) will be examined in detail in a corpus-based study. The analysis reveals that King Abdullah II employs ethical appeals to identify himself with the audience and create a rapport with them by using first-person pronouns and lexical items like "my friends". The quantitative analysis shows that the inclusive pronoun we and the pronoun I am used for rhetorical reasons to convince the audience. Direct and indirect emotional appeals are also used to stir the audience's emotions to call them to action. King Abdullah II uses logical arguments such as an argument from statistics, quoting from the Holy Quran, and an argument from a dilemma, inter alia, to convince the audience of his viewpoints and persuade them to do specific actions.

Nouns, Verbs and Other Parts of Speech in Translation and Interpreting: Evidence from English Speeches Made in the European Parliament and Their German Translations and Interpretations

This study investigates the distributions of word classes in English speeches made in the European Parliament and their German (written) translations and simultaneous interpretations. For comparison, a sample of original German speeches and a selection of political interviews are used. The study is motivated by the intention to understand the relationship between the type of mediation and communicative modes: mediated spoken language is compared to unmediated spoken language and to mediated written language. The results show that the interpretations exhibit a less nominal style than the translations, in this respect resembling unplanned spoken conversation. Other quantitative findings, such as a high frequency of adverbs, also point to a register effect, but interpretations have a hybrid status and can be located somewhere in the middle, between the register of the source text (parliamentary speech) and unplanned spoken discourse. The results are discussed against the background of the mechanisms that presumably underlie the choices made by translators (processing, register and strategies).

Chinese comprehenders' interpretation of underinformativeness in L1 and L2 accented speech narratives.

Second language (L2) speakers with foreign accents are well-known to face disadvantages in terms of language processing; however, recent research has demonstrated possible social benefits for foreign-accented L2 speakers. While previous research has focused on the ways in which first language (L1) speakers of English comprehend L2 speech, the present article contributes to this line of research by exploring the ways in which comprehenders from a different culture and linguistic background perceive L2 speech narratives. This study investigates this issue by exploring how comprehenders with Mandarin Chinese as the first language interpret underinformative utterances containing scalar and ad hoc implicature in L1, accent-free L2, and foreign-accented L2 speech narratives. The sentence judgment task with a guise design used written sentences rather than oral utterances as stimuli in order to isolate the role of intelligibility factors. The results indicate that foreign accent confers social benefits on L2 speakers in that their omission of information in communication is tolerated and they are viewed as more likely to possess positive attributes. More importantly, we find that the bilingual characteristics of Chinese participants, as well as the different linguistic complexity of deriving scalar and ad hoc implicature, affect Chinese participants' explanations of underinformative sentences of L2 speakers. This study contributes to our understanding of L2 language processing.

Retracted: English Speech Feature Recognition-Based Fuzzy Algorithm and Artificial Intelligent

Retracted: English Speech Feature Recognition-Based Fuzzy Algorithm and Artificial Intelligent

Cognitive prosodies, displacements, and translation

Abstract This article introduces the cognitive prosodies model as a way to explain how some rhetorical features in persuasive texts differ across languages and rhetorical traditions, which may inform the process of translating highly rhetorical, persuasive texts. By drawing on a multidisciplinary framework grounded in comparative rhetoric, the semiotics of advertising, cognitive linguistics, and studies of rhetorical phenomena based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and event-related potential (ERP), it first describes persuasion as a textual process that weaves specific ‘static’ versus ‘dynamic’ rhetorical mechanisms. These activate varying cognitive efforts and speeds in semantic processing that differ between languages and textual genres. The second half of the article presents a corpus-based study of six English and Spanish presidential speeches on immigration – and their translations – by three consecutive Mexican and US presidents. Through the lens of the cognitive prosodies model, the analysis quantitatively and qualitatively scrutinizes how source and target texts behave and how the model can inform rhetorical awareness in translation practice.

An in-depth analysis of the representation of speech acts and language functions in Libyan public high school English textbooks.

Researchers have taken an interest to study the language of English materials that learners use in different contexts. One line of inquiry is to examine the pragmatic competence potential of such materials. This study aimed at examining the use of speech acts and language functions in the 21st Century English for Libya Secondary 1, 2, and 3 course books and workbooks. To achieve this aim, a frequency-based analysis of language functions and speech acts in the conversation sections in the five course books and five workbooks was followed. A data analysis revealed that the distribution of speech acts and language functions is highly skewed; in each analysis domain, a given category accounted for almost half of the data while other categories accounted for little or even none. Findings are used to argue that Libyan students need a more balanced and language-in-use informed distribution of English functions and speech acts to learn the pragmatic features of English; otherwise, they are less likely to become communicatively competent in speech acts and functions that have been not been treated adequately. The findings also highlight that the unequal frequency and distribution of these pragmatic variables are in line with previous studies and provide implications for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum, material designers, and language practitioners.

Research on the Development Path of “Digital Humanities Literacy” for College English Learners under the Background of New Liberal Arts Construction-Taking the Course “English Speech” as an Example

At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed to accelerate the construction of a "digital China" by promoting digitalisation in education in order to achieve a "digitally strong nation". The training of talents in the context of the new liberal arts should be transformed from traditional humanities literacy to "digital humanities literacy". This paper takes the English Speech course as the starting point and the "Five Powers Model" as the theoretical basis to carry out teaching experiments and explore how to use the new media platforms to enhance the "digital humanities literacy" of English learners in colleges and universities, so as to improve their their "international communication power" and achieve the goal of “delivering the voice of China".

The Application of "English Public Speaking" in College English Teaching

As a practical work experience, English public speaking plays an important role in cultivating college students' oral communication ability and thinking ability. English speaking ability is the necessary English literacy for young college students in the new era, which reflects the speaker's English language expression ability, critical thinking ability and cross-cultural communication ability, Therefore, college teachers should fully integrate "English public speaking" into college English teaching, so as to improve the thinking of college students. From the perspective of in novative development of college English language, this paper summarizes the development of Chinese college English public speech and English courses, and emphasizes the shortcomings in teaching and the development path of English public speech.

Substitution phonological patterns in the English speech of Ghanaian children

When children find the production of a speech sound difficult, they tend to substitute it with another easier one, a phenomenon described as Substitution Phonological Pattern (SPP). This study investigated SPP in Ghanaian preschoolers, who spoke their individual Ghanaian languages like Akan and Ga as their first languages (L1) but were learning to speak English as a second language, to understand and document how these children pronounced English speech sounds. Thirty preschoolers in a privately-owned basic school in Kumasi were selected and voice recorded as they mentioned twenty English lexical items from their textbooks after their teacher. Both the participants' and their teacher's productions of the stimulus words were transcribed according to the International Phonetic Alphabet. The data was analysed using both qualitative and quantitative research approaches and within the framework of Natural Phonology Theory. Findings indicated that the children exhibited Fronting, Backing, and Stopping. The participants' L1 and age among other factors were observed to be responsible for the processes identified: English sounds that were absent in the L1 of the children were difficult to produce for some of the children, while older children exhibited fewer cases of substitution. This study might serve as a documented material and a reference point for future researchers and Ministry of Education of the Republic of Ghana on Ghanaian children phonological experiences as regards the speaking of English.

Структура субстантивно-предложных синтагм в англоязычном тексте патента

Substantive-prepositional syntagmas in the English text of the patent are chosen as the subject of research. We set the task of determine to what extent this type of syntagmatics is typical for the chosen genre and present a typological description of structures based on the N+of+N core model. The relevance of the tasks set is determined by the insufficient knowledge of the categorical, linguistic and discursive features of such structures in English speech in general and in the texts of patent documentation in particular. The basis of the empirical research, carried out on the material of two corpora of texts, is the methods of syntagmatic, constructive, comparative and statistical analysis. The frequency of substantive-prepositional syntagmas in comparison with other types of compound nominative units and individual features that distinguish prepositional combinations from lexical syntagmas have been established. Design features of syntagmas are revealed; the syntactic processes of distribution of simple structures are described, the most significant of which are development, expansion, accession; the specifics of the implementation in these processes of such methods of distribution as lexical and syntactic, allied and non-union, adjective and substantive are determined. The obtained results supplement the information about syntagmatics as a sign of the genre and style of the text. They can serve as a basis for further research in the field of syntagmatics of English speech and find application in teaching English for professional purposes, as well as in a comparative analysis of original and parallel texts in Russian.

A Study on the Ways to Improve Cross-cultural Critical Thinking Ability with English Speech as the Carrier—Based on a Survey of English Majors in China

A Study on the Ways to Improve Cross-cultural Critical Thinking Ability with English Speech as the Carrier—Based on a Survey of English Majors in China

Explore the Innovative Path of English Speech Pronunciation Training

The development trend of global economic integration makes the trade between countries more and more close. English, the world language, occupies an increasingly important position in international exchanges and cultural and economic activities, and the oral English ability is gradually valued by educators. English speech can effectively stimulate the motivation of English learning and improve speakers' English level from multiple perspectives. Therefore, in order to further enhance the appeal of English speech, apart from the careful writing of English speech content, speech speech and other on-the-spot performance is also an important factor affecting the effect of English speech. Based on this, this paper puts forward some innovative ways of English speech pronunciation training, hoping to help speakers implement the art of speech, make full use of pronunciation and posture to infect the audience, achieve the purpose of English speech, and deepen their own English literacy.

Retracted] Innovative Application of Sensor Combined with Speech Recognition Technology in College English Education in the Context of Artificial Intelligence

English listening is an effective way to improve students’ English expression ability and use oral communication. However, from the current situation of English teaching, the current English teaching methods are too single, and teachers do not focus on oral training in the classroom, resulting in low efficiency of classroom teaching. On the basis of following the principles of wholeness, interaction, balance, and sustainable development of educational ecology, by enhancing the synergy of ecological elements of English speaking classroom, promoting interactive dialogue among ecological subjects, and regulating classroom behaviors, it is conducive to giving full play to the advantageous role of information technology on English speaking teaching reform and promoting its sustainable development. This paper addresses the current situation of English listening teaching, especially the problem of reduced recognition rate of spoken language in noisy environment, and the principle of using dual‐sensor speech recognition system proposed. We design the speech recognition method based on recurrent neural network by acquiring the weak vibration pressure speech signal of the jaw skin and the speech signal transmitted through the air during the vocalization process through the sensor. Deep machine learning algorithm is used for speech recognition in English teaching. A reasonable frame sampling frequency is set to obtain the English speech signal, then the feature parameters representing this speech signal are obtained by linear prediction coefficients, and the speech feature vector is generated, followed by the recurrent neural network algorithm to train the speech features. In the related experiments, by comparing with the commonly used speech recognition algorithms, it is proved that the proposed algorithm English teaching speech recognition has higher accuracy and faster convergence.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ ОБУЧЕНИЯ АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ ДЕТЕЙ СТАРШЕГО ДОШКОЛЬНОГО ВОЗРАСТА С ЗАДЕРЖКОЙ ПСИХИЧЕСКОГО РАЗВИТИЯ

Mental retardation is one of the most common mental development disorders in children. According to various data, about 3% of preschool children have developmental disorders of the delay type. In addition, it is difficult to establish the number of children with cognitive developmental features who do not have an established diagnosis. Such children enter the system of general education, including preschool, where they face the need to learn English. Some experts insist that due to the specifics of mental development, the study of foreign languages should be postponed until the time of normalization of higher mental functions. However, as demonstrated in the article, the study of a foreign language already at the senior preschool age can be quite successful. And not just to form a child’s skills in a new language, but also to say favorably on the development of cognitive skills in general. The paper shows that despite the low level of readiness to learn English, subject to certain rules and recommendations, taking into account the specifics of the structure of the mental retardation defect, creating special educational conditions, children with mental retardation can successfully learn English. It also presents the program for teaching English speaking skills (elementary skills of monologue and dialogic speech) for children of senior preschool age with developmental delay. The program was implemented by the group of children attending kindergarten; the results of the implementation are also presented in the article. The results were obtained that children of senior preschool age with mental retardation are able to successfully master elementary speaking skills (elementary skills of monologue and dialogical speech) in English with a special organization of the educational process within the framework of the preschool educational institution.

Дискурсные маркеры как когнитивные доминанты речевого взаимодействия в разносистемных языках

The article contains the results of studying the discourse markers as a universal cognitive and functional phenomenon of discourse from the point of view of the theory of cognitive dominants of speech. The attempt is made to analyze discourse markers as a component of the conceptual structure of discourse from the point of view of thematic, subject, sociocultural, instrumental, and intentional principles. The role of discourse markers as cognitive dominants in speech is justified and verified on the basis of the modern corpora of Russian, English, French and Japanese text and speech material which represents different language systems and types of discourse. The topicality of the research is determined by the practical necessity and importance of further development of cognitive studies of discourse markers in directions, which open up the possibility of effective automated identification of discourse markers in different languages through the use of heuristic methods and artificial intelligence technologies. In this regard, the formalization of cognitive potential of discourse markers belonging to different language systems based on the theory of cognitive dominants is believed to provide a significant theoretical and linguistic basis and new data for the further development of the principle of heuristic analysis of discourse markers in speech belonging to different types of discourse. The scientific significance of the research is determined by the fact that the obtained results provide a qualitatively new approach to the issue of providing a formal description of discourse marker functions as cognitive dominants of speech for the purpose of developing the algorithms of text and discourse processing, and, in particular, the heuristic identification of discourse markers in electronic text corpora in different languages.

Intra-Native Accent Shared Features for Improving Neural Network-Based Accent Classification and Accent Similarity Evaluation

Accent similarity evaluation and accent identification are complex and challenging tasks for various applications due to the existence of variant types of native and non-native languages in the world. The absence of existing studies for the non-native and native English accent similarity evaluation and the limitation of individual feature extraction techniques for accent classifications have led us to propose a new model termed the intra-native accent feature sharing based native accent identification (NAI) framework using an English accent archive speech dataset. The NAI network was employed for non-native English accent classification, native English accent classification, and identification of native and non-native English accents. Finally, the accent similarity of native and non-native English accents was evaluated based on a delicate NAI pre-trained model. Moreover, the proposed approach has a high role in training data augmentation to overcome the challenge of a huge amount of training datasets demands of deep learning. The ordinary individual voice feature extraction with data augmentation and regularization techniques was the baseline for our work. The proposed approach boosted the accuracy of the baseline method with an average accuracy value of 3.7% -7.5% on different vigorous deep learning algorithms. The Quade test method for the performance comparison gave a 0.01 significant level (p-value) that proved that the proposed approach performed better than the baseline significantly. The model makes the rank for non-native English accents based on their similarity to native English accents and the proximity rank is Mandarin, Italian, German, French, Amharic, and Hindi.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИХ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЙ В АДВИСИВНЫХ РЕЧЕВЫХ АКТАХ (на материале современной американской художественной прозы)

The subject of the study is the peculiarities of translational transformations distribution in the American artistic discourse while translating English advisive speech acts into Russian and the causes of their occurrence. The purpose of the study is to systematize transformations while translating English advisives into Russian. The stated purpose involves solving the following tasks: 1. to identify the main types of translation transformations in the group of advisive speech acts; 2. to establish the main causes of transformations when translating English advisives into Russian. The following methods are used to solve these tasks: continuous sampling method, comparative analysis, distributive method, descriptive method, interpretation method. The scientific novelty is determined by a detailed analysis of translation transformations in the advisive group of speech acts in accordance with the text approach. It includes not only their distribution peculiarities but also their main causes. The analysis of translation transformations in advisive speech acts revealed the following: 1. Structural translation transformations predominate in advisive speech acts due to the typological linguistic reasons. 2. Extralinguistic factors mostly cause contextual transformations as well as speech acts transformations. 3. There are some examples when no translation transformation occurs which mostly happens with similar English and Russian constructions