Native American English Speakers Research Articles

The effects of explicit pronunciation instruction on the comprehensibility and intelligibility of Tunisian EFL learners

Pronunciation instruction had often been neglected in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes because it was generally associated with the mechanical drills reminiscent of the Audiolingual method and because it was considered to be incompatible with Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Recent research has, however, shown that explicit pronunciation instruction is quite compatible with CLT and that it results in improving the learner's comprehensibility and intelligibility. This study reports results of classroom-based experimental research on the effects of explicit pronunciation instruction on the learning of the segments and suprasegmental features of English by Tunisian EFL learners. It followed a pretest /posttest design. Two experimental groups (Groups 1 &2) received a special treatment in pronunciation using an eclectic approach. Group 1 was taught pronunciation with a focus on English segments, while with Group 2 the focus was rather on suprasegmental features. The performance of the two groups was compared to a control group (Group 3) that was taught the same content but following the traditional Audiolingual method. Native speakers of American English rated the comprehensibility of the participants and transcribed some of their utterances before and after the treatment. Results show that both the comprehensibility and the intelligibility of Tunisian EFL learners' speech improved significantly. Group 2 which had more practice in suprasegmentals obtained, however, better results than Group 1 which had more practice on segments. Implications for pronunciation teaching and syllabus design are hence put forward.

Constraints on have-cliticisation and accessibility of Universal Grammar in native speakers and foreign language learners

The cliticisation of have onto a preceding word has been argued to be constrained by principles of Universal Grammar. In particular, have-cliticisation appears to be blocked when an empty T constituent that follows from Universal Grammar intervenes between have and its host provided that the host c-commands have and that the host ends with a vowel or diphthong. The study investigated knowledge of these constraints in (31) adult native speakers of American English and (162) adult Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language. The results of a grammaticality judgment test showed that both the group of native speakers and the group of foreign language learners exhibited differentiating patterns of response to sentences with licit and illicit have-cliticisation suggesting that their production of have-cliticisation is constrained by Universal Grammar. However, both groups showed imperfect knowledge of the constraints on have-cliticisation especially on the part of foreign language learners. This imperfect knowledge is argued to be the result of a concealing effect of performance factors.

Native language shapes automatic neural processing of speech

The development of the phoneme inventory is driven by the acoustic-phonetic properties of one's native language. Neural representation of speech is known to be shaped by language experience, as indexed by cortical responses, and recent studies suggest that subcortical processing also exhibits this attunement to native language. However, most work to date has focused on the differences between tonal and non-tonal languages that use pitch variations to convey phonemic categories. The aim of this cross-language study is to determine whether subcortical encoding of speech sounds is sensitive to language experience by comparing native speakers of two non-tonal languages (French and English). We hypothesized that neural representations would be more robust and fine-grained for speech sounds that belong to the native phonemic inventory of the listener, and especially for the dimensions that are phonetically relevant to the listener such as high frequency components. We recorded neural responses of American English and French native speakers, listening to natural syllables of both languages. Results showed that, independently of the stimulus, American participants exhibited greater neural representation of the fundamental frequency compared to French participants, consistent with the importance of the fundamental frequency to convey stress patterns in English. Furthermore, participants showed more robust encoding and more precise spectral representations of the first formant when listening to the syllable of their native language as compared to non-native language. These results align with the hypothesis that language experience shapes sensory processing of speech and that this plasticity occurs as a function of what is meaningful to a listener.

Non-native speakers’ acoustic variability in producing American English tense and lax vowels

The primary goal of the present study was to compare native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers’ vowel productions to determine whether the L2 subjects showed similar or greater within-subject (i.e., token-to-token) variability relative to the L1 talkers when producing American English vowels. We were particularly interested in whether L2 subjects whose vowels were more native-like would be less variable in their productions and whether L2 talkers’ whose vowels were less native-like would be more variable in their productions. First and second formants of the tense and lax vowel pairs / i—ɪ /, / e—ɛ /, and / u—ʊ / were measured and Coefficient of Variation was calculated for 10 native speakers of American English and 30 non-native speakers of English from three different language backgrounds (viz., 10 Mandarin speakers, 10 Korean speakers, and 10 Spanish speakers). Overall, the L2 subjects’ vowel formant patterns were found to be comparable to those of L1 speakers approximately half of the time. Whether the L2 talkers’ American English vowel formants were native-like or not, however, they seldom showed greater within-subject variability than the native speakers.

The effect of visual information on non-native speakers' perception of Cantonese tones

This study examines the effect of tone marks on the perception of 5 difficult Cantonese tone pairs that have high perceptual similarity: high-rising (25) versus mid-rising (23), mid-level (33) versus low-level (22/11), low-falling (21) versus low-rising (23), low-falling (21) versus low-level (22/11), and low-rising (23) versus low-level(22/11). Native speakers of American English and native speakers of Mandarin participated in a categorial AXB pre-test, a categorial AX training, and a categorial AXB post-test. Half of the subjects received iconic symbols (㐂 ⌉ for high-rising (25), ㌷ for mid-level (33), 㐂 for low-falling (21), 㐂 ㌷ for low-rising (23), and 㐂 for low-level (22/11)) as feedback in the training (Auditory-Visual training group) while the other half did not (Auditory). Preliminary results showed that both language groups improved their discrimination of all the tone pairs and that Mandarin speakers received higher percent response than English speakers in the post-test. AV subjects and A subjects, regardless of language groups, did not differ significantly in percent correct response in the post-test. Reaction time data suggested that AV subjects responded faster on the pair high-rising (25) versus mid-rising (23) than A subjects, regardless of language groups, and that Mandarin speakers responded faster than English speakers in the post-test.

Three-dimensional tongue shapes of /r/ production in American English words

A number of studies have shown that /r/ production in American English involves complex tongue shapes. Previous 3D imaging studies, however, have been limited to sustained (static) /r/ sounds produced in supine position. Since supine versus upright posture and static versus dynamic speech production influences the shape of the tongue, it is unclear to what degree previous findings of three-dimensional tongue shapes are generalizable to /r/ sounds produced dynamically and with upright posture. This study presents upright-posture 3D tongue shapes of dynamically produced /r/ sounds from words embedded in a carrier phrase. Twenty young adult native speakers of American English participated in the study (10 males and 10 females), and analyses are ongoing.

The meaning of „nasal grunts” in the NECTE corpus. A preliminary perceptual investigation

This paper reports a perceptual evaluation of the meanings conveyed by the acoustic components of “nasal grunts” (Chlebowski and Ballier 2015), i.e., non-lexical conversational sounds realised with a nasal feature (e.g. <ehm>, <uhhuh>, <mmhm>). This study follows the experimental investigation conducted by Chlebowski and Ballier (2015) on the acoustic components of such sounds in the PVC project (Milroy et al. 1997), which is part of the NECTE corpus (Allen et al. 2007). In accordance with current claims in the literature, they ascribed meanings to these acoustic features, e.g. fall-rises express that the “speaker implies something” (Wells 2006: 27), and verified their validity through an analysis of the context surrounding the “nasal grunts”. Nonetheless, to avoid problems of circularity and ad hoc categories, the present study includes a perceptual evaluation by four participants. To verify the meanings ascribed to the features of “nasal grunts”, three native speakers of American English were recorded in short casual conversations and three perception tests were created using these recordings, with Praat software (Boersma and Weenink 2009). The first two tests aim to check whether different acoustic features: 1) are perceived as different when presented in pairs; 2) can be identified by the participants (as falls or rises) in isolation. The last test aim to determine whether each feature bears the same meaning: 1) in isolation, 2) in a given context, or 3) in scripted conversations likely to trigger the meanings ascribed by Chlebowski and Ballier (2015). Results suggest that acoustic components of “nasal grunts” in Geordie English do convey specific attitudinal meanings, and raise the possibility of a perceptual hierarchy of those components.

Making Suggestions while Collaborating in L1 English: Common Structures and Strategies

The present study examines English suggestions that surfaced naturally during a collaborative writing task in a Spanish class. Students’ limited L2 (second language) oral skills made it necessary for them to speak in their L1 (first language), English, while creating a written product in Spanish. Given the interactive nature of the assignment, making suggestions was a collaborative gesture; to remain silent was to be off-task, uncooperative, or uncommitted to the group’s success. This article explores the syntactic structures, pragmatic strategies, and redressive actions used by native speakers of American English when making suggestions. The data indicate that participants made frequent use of modals and did not use the more formulaic strategies included in some lists and taxonomies (Koike 1994; Martínez-Flor 2005)

Second Language Acquisition of Spanish /e/ and /ei/ by Native English Speakers

The present article reports on the findings of a cross-sectional acoustic study of the production of the Spanish /e/-/ei/ contrast, as in pena-peina and reno-reino , by native-English intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish. The acoustic parameter that distinguishes Spanish /e/ from /ei/ is formant change—/e/ is a monophthong and /ei/ is a diphthong. English, on the other hand, has a mid front monophthong /ɛ/ ( bet, debt ) and a mid-to-high front diphthong /e ɪ / ( bait, date ). These vowels differ in both their overall place of articulation and in their dynamic characteristics. Spanish /e/ is similar to both English /ɛ/ and /e ɪ / but is not identical to any of the two vowels; Spanish /ei/ is similar, but also not identical, to English /e ɪ /. This situation creates complex inter-lingual interactions for the learners. The study addresses these interactions as they are evidenced in speech production. The findings are discussed in terms of their significance for current models of second language speech learning and provide important information regarding the paths of pronunciation development in the second-language acquisition of Spanish vowels by adult native speakers of American English.

Effects of perceptual training on second language vowel perception and production

ABSTRACTThis study investigates whether audiovisual training leads to greater improvement in perception and production than auditory training. The participants (n= 60) were American English native speakers enrolled in intermediate French courses. They received audiovisual training, audio-only training, or no training, and were tested at pretest and posttest on their perception and production of French nasal vowels. The results suggest that both training groups improved significantly from the pretest to the posttest, but that the differences between the audiovisual and audio-only groups were not statistically significant. However, the production of the audiovisual training group improved significantly more than the production of the audio-only training group did, suggesting that seeing facial gestures leads to greater improvement in pronunciation.

Methods for quantifying tongue shape and complexity using ultrasound imaging

ABSTRACTQuantification of tongue shape is potentially useful for indexing articulatory strategies arising from intervention, therapy and development. Tongue shape complexity is a parameter that can be used to reflect regional functional independence of the tongue musculature. This paper considers three different shape quantification methods – based on Procrustes analysis, curvature inflections and Fourier coefficients – and uses a linear discriminant analysis to test how well each method is able to classify tongue shapes from different phonemes. Test data are taken from six native speakers of American English producing 15 phoneme types. Results classify tongue shapes accurately when combined across quantification methods. These methods hold promise for extending the use of ultrasound in clinical assessments of speech deficits.

Visual Feedback of Tongue Movement for Novel Speech Sound Learning.

Pronunciation training studies have yielded important information concerning the processing of audiovisual (AV) information. Second language (L2) learners show increased reliance on bottom-up, multimodal input for speech perception (compared to monolingual individuals). However, little is known about the role of viewing one's own speech articulation processes during speech training. The current study investigated whether real-time, visual feedback for tongue movement can improve a speaker's learning of non-native speech sounds. An interactive 3D tongue visualization system based on electromagnetic articulography (EMA) was used in a speech training experiment. Native speakers of American English produced a novel speech sound (/ɖ/; a voiced, coronal, palatal stop) before, during, and after trials in which they viewed their own speech movements using the 3D model. Talkers' productions were evaluated using kinematic (tongue-tip spatial positioning) and acoustic (burst spectra) measures. The results indicated a rapid gain in accuracy associated with visual feedback training. The findings are discussed with respect to neural models for multimodal speech processing.

Extended High-Frequency Bandwidth Improves Speech Reception in the Presence of Spatially Separated Masking Speech

The hypothesis that extending the audible frequency bandwidth beyond the range currently implemented in most hearing aids can improve speech understanding was tested for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired participants using target sentences and spatially separated masking speech. The Hearing In Speech Test (HIST) speech corpus was re-recorded, and four masking talkers were recorded at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. All talkers were male native speakers of American English. For each subject, the reception threshold for sentences (RTS) was measured in two spatial configurations. In the asymmetric configuration, the target was presented from -45° azimuth and two colocated masking talkers were presented from +45° azimuth. In the diffuse configuration, the target was presented from 0° azimuth and four masking talkers were each presented from a different azimuth: +45°, +135°, -135°, and -45°. The new speech sentences, masking materials, and configurations were presented using low-pass filter cutoff frequencies of 4, 6, 8, and 10 kHz. For the normal-hearing participants, stimuli were presented in the sound field using loudspeakers. For the hearing-impaired participants, the spatial configurations were simulated using earphones, and a multiband wide-dynamic-range compressor with a modified CAM2 fitting algorithm was used to compensate for each participant's hearing loss. For the normal-hearing participants (N = 24, mean age 40 years), the RTS improved significantly by 3.0 dB when the bandwidth was increased from 4 to 10 kHz, and a significant improvement of 1.3 dB was obtained from extending the bandwidth from 6 to 10 kHz, in both spatial configurations. Hearing-impaired participants (N = 25, mean age 71 years) also showed a significant improvement in RTS with extended bandwidth, but the effect was smaller than for the normal-hearing participants. The mean decrease in RTS when the bandwidth was increased from 4 to 10 kHz was 1.3 dB for the asymmetric condition and 0.5 dB for the diffuse condition. Extending bandwidth from 4 to 10 kHz can improve the ability of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired participants to understand target speech in the presence of spatially separated masking speech. Future studies of the benefits of extended high-frequency amplification should investigate other realistic listening situations, masker types, spatial configurations, and room reverberation conditions, to determine added value in overcoming the technical challenges associated with implementing a device capable of providing extended high-frequency amplification.

Acoustic cues to the [j]-[i] distinction in American English

Existing lexical items suggest that American English exhibits a [j]-[i] distinction (e.g., pneumonia [numonjə], Estonia [ɛstoniə]). This study tests if such a distinction can be experimentally elicited in both existing and new items and what acoustic cues most consistently convey it. A sentence reading task elicits the distinction by native speakers of American English using orthographically paired nonce names: 'y' stimuli (e.g., Chobya) expecting [jV] productions, 'i' stimuli (e.g., Shabia) expecting [iV] productions. Stimuli are controlled and diversified along the factors of place and manner of the preceding consonant and word position (initial vs. medial). Multiple acoustic factors of [V] sequences are measured and tested against each other as predictors of stimulus orthography, thus as cues to any elicited distinction, in a generalized linear mixed-effects model. Productions of 'y' stimuli are predicted by significantly earlier transition to the following vowel (represented by timepoint of the F2 maximum), lower F1, and lower intensity. This confirms the presence of the distinction and supports a constriction/height-based classification (Padgett 2008). A significant difference in F2 is not observed; these results are therefore not consistent with a classification of [j] as a coronal sound and [i] as dorsal (Levi 2008).

Social factors of the prosodic design of the utterance

This article analyzes peculiarities of the melodic composition of pre-terminal part of a sense-group in the speech of native speakers of American English who are representatives of different age and gender groups living on the territory of the United States. The present investigation is dedicated to the analysis of the melodic characteristics of American representatives of different age and gender groups’ speech. Age is considered the basic of human being, it defines the boundaries of human development and social opportunities of a person. Often age demands from the individual the corresponding behavior. Judging by the opinion of sociophoneticians age changes in speech touch the whole spectrum of prosodic components including dynamic ones, however age can’t be considered the only factor, influencing the peculiarity of individual’s speech behavior. Majority of investigations prove that there is also an interconnection between gender and territorial peculiarities of the speech. A person presents a complex unity of personal and social principles, which means that any changes, which occur are defined by the variety of physiological and social forces. The conducted instrumental investigation showed that dynamic characteristics of speech are quite informative for defining age identification of American variant representatives.

Have went– an American usage problem

Have wentmay seem a straightforward non-standard grammatical form today, but it evidently has a different status in British and American English. While in British English it developed into a non-standard form after the codification of the strong verb system by the eighteenth-century normative grammarians, in American English it became a usage problem. This we concluded from its appearance primarily in usage guides published in the United States over the years. The current status of the variant in the region was confirmed by evidence we encountered both in anonymous surveys and in face-to-face interviews with native speakers of American English. Our findings for the differences in status ofhave wentin the course of its history were supported by corpus-based analyses of historical and modern text corpora for British and American English, while a close analysis of selected modern instances ofhave wentandhave goneshowed a different distribution between the two that appears to warrant a perceived difference in meaning noted by some of the American informants.

Similar frequency of the McGurk effect in large samples of native Mandarin Chinese and American English speakers.

Humans combine visual information from mouth movements with auditory information from the voice to recognize speech. A common method for assessing multisensory speech perception is the McGurk effect: When presented with particular pairings of incongruent auditory and visual speech syllables (e.g., the auditory speech sounds for "ba" dubbed onto the visual mouth movements for "ga"), individuals perceive a third syllable, distinct from the auditory and visual components. Chinese and American cultures differ in the prevalence of direct facial gaze and in the auditory structure of their languages, raising the possibility of cultural- and language-related group differences in the McGurk effect. There is no consensus in the literature about the existence of these group differences, with some studies reporting less McGurk effect in native Mandarin Chinese speakers than in English speakers and others reporting no difference. However, these studies sampled small numbers of participants tested with a small number of stimuli. Therefore, we collected data on the McGurk effect from large samples of Mandarin-speaking individuals from China and English-speaking individuals from the USA (total n = 307) viewing nine different stimuli. Averaged across participants and stimuli, we found similar frequencies of the McGurk effect between Chinese and American participants (48 vs. 44 %). In both groups, we observed a large range of frequencies both across participants (range from 0 to 100 %) and stimuli (15 to 83 %) with the main effect of culture and language accounting for only 0.3 % of the variance in the data. High individual variability in perception of the McGurk effect necessitates the use of large sample sizes to accurately estimate group differences.

Learning styles and perceptual patterns for English /i/ and /ɪ/ among Chinese college students

ABSTRACTThis study examined whether learning styles, along with age of starting English learning and length of English learning, are related to perceptual patterns for English /i/–/ɪ/ among Chinese college students who learn English as a foreign language. A total of 83 Chinese college students with different learning styles as measured by Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (1985) and 16 native speakers of American English identified the vowels in a syntheticbeat–bitcontinuum. The results revealed that the Chinese participants’ perceptual patterns for English /i/–/ɪ/ varied with their learning styles. The participants with Kolb's (1985) assimilative and divergent learning styles were more likely to exhibit perceptual patterns resembling those of the American participants than were the participants with convergent and accommodative learning styles. Furthermore, of Kolb's four learning modes, reflective observation had a facilitative effect on the participants’ perception, whereas active experimentation was more likely to cause difficulties; abstract conceptualization and concrete experience bore little relation to the perception of these two sounds. In addition, length of English learning played a critical part in the development of English /i/–/ɪ/ perception. However, age of starting English learning in foreign language conditions was not as crucial as suggested by earlier studies on speech perception in second language conditions.

Globalized Parochialism: Consequences of English as Lingua Franca in Philosophy of Science

In recent decades, English has become the uncontestable lingua franca of philosophy of science and of most other areas of philosophy and of the humanities. To have a lingua franca produces enormous benefits for the entire scientific community. The price for those benefits, however, is paid almost exclusively by non-native speakers of English (NoNES). Section 1 identifies three asymmetries that individual NoNES researchers encounter: ‘publication asymmetry’, ‘resources asymmetry’, and ‘team asymmetry’. Section 2 deals with ‘globalized parochialism asymmetry’: thanks to English being a lingua franca, a special (‘parochial’) perspective, mostly US and British, is being globalized and is replacing European topics and approaches. This has serious consequences for history of philosophy as well as for philosophical theory: thinkers of the past tend to be dealt with on the global level at best only if and insofar they are translated into English. Similarly, the theoretical agenda of globalized philosophy of science is set by—mostly American—native English speakers (NES). This way, interesting and important topics and approaches from the European continent are marginalized or completely ignored in the world of globalized parochialism. In my view, the structural asymmetry and even unfairness on the global level between NES and NoNES cannot be eliminated but only attenuated.

Listeners’ sensitivity to nasal coarticulation and its interactions with lexical neighborhood density

Previous research has shown that words from dense phonological neighborhoods, thus subject to greater lexical competition, are hyperarticulated (Wright, 2004; Munson and Solomon, 2004) and produced with a greater degree of coarticulation (Scarborough, 2013). The current study investigates listeners’ sensitivity to lexically conditioned degree of nasal coarticulation. If the basis of attested Neighborhood Density (ND) effects is listener-oriented (as suggested by Wright), listeners’ sensitivity to different degrees of coarticulation may be influenced by ND patterns as well. Forty-three native speakers of American English participated in a forced-choice discrimination task. The stimuli consisted of 32 monosyllabic words with nasal codas, and the degree of vowel nasality was natural or artificially increased or decreased. A Generalized Linear Mixed Effects regression was performed on Correct Response with Direction of Manipulation and ND as fixed factors. The model revealed a significant interaction of Direction and ND (p<0.001), where increased nasality was discriminated more correctly among high ND words while decreased nasality was discriminated more correctly among low ND words. This result shows that listeners are indeed sensitive to differences in degree of nasal coarticulation, and in ways that reflect neighborhood conditioned patterns.