Native American English Speakers Research Articles

The influence of accent and device usage on perceived credibility during interactions with voice-AI assistants

Voice-AI assistants offer innovative ways for people to interact with technology, such as delivering search results through human-sounding voices. Unlike printed text, however, voices are associated with particular characteristics, such as accents, which have the potential to influence perceived credibility. Voice-AI assistants are also a relatively new phenomenon, and while people who use them frequently may be inclined to trust them, other people may not be. The current study investigated how voice accent and frequency-of-use affected users’ credibility assessments of search results delivered by voice-AI assistants. Participants, who were native speakers of American English and self-classified themselves according to how frequently they used voice-AI assistants, listened to statements produced by neural text-to-speech in either an American English or British English accent. They then rated the credibility of both the information content and the voice itself, along several dimensions. Results showed that in multiple conditions, participants perceived information delivered by British-accented voices as more credible than that delivered by American English-accented voices. Furthermore, frequency-of-use exerted a significant effect on perceived trustworthiness of a voice. These findings have implications for the ethical design of voice-AI systems, and for human-computer interaction more generally.

Does Native Language Matter in Perceptual Ratings of Dysarthria?

Despite the general agreement that dysarthria characteristics are largely language-independent, few efforts have attempted a systematic comparison across languages. To examine the role of native languages in the perception of speech characteristics of dysarthria secondary to Parkinson's disease (PD), auditory-perceptual ratings of dysarthria, and confidence level of the judgments were compared between two listener groups: language-matched and language-crossed. A total of 60 listeners (35 native speakers of Korean and 25 native speakers of American English) estimated speech abnormality for 20 speech dimensions using a visual analog scale method for both language-matched and language-crossed speech stimuli. Speech stimuli were passage readings of the respective languages obtained from individuals with and without PD. For speech dimension ratings, eight of 20 speech dimensions revealed significant differences in response to PD speech between the two listener groups, for most of which, language-crossed listeners' estimation was lower (i.e., more impaired) than language-matched listeners. For confidence-level ratings, language-matched listeners were less confident in the ratings of speakers with PD compared to the language-crossed listeners. The data support both language-universal and language-specific aspects in perceiving dysarthria characteristics, such that native language plays a role, especially when rating articulatory- and rhythmic-related characteristics. The findings are discussed with respect to the role of linguistic information, such as phonetic inventories and prosodic structures, in perceiving dysarthria characteristics.

Making the Unseen Seen: The Role of Signaling and Novelty in Rating Metaphors

Comprehension of metaphorical expressions differs with their degree of novelty. Conventional metaphors are typically comprehended as easily as literal sentences, while novel metaphors are responded to less quickly than their conventional counterparts. However, the influence of metaphor signals on the interpretability and acceptability of sentences with metaphors, especially their potential interaction with novelty, remains an open question. We conducted six online experiments among 1,694 native speakers of American English to examine how interpretability and acceptability ratings of individually presented sentences were affected by metaphor novelty and different types of metaphor signals. Across all six experiments, we consistently found that novel metaphors decreased the interpretability and acceptability of sentences compared to both conventional metaphors and literal controls. Signals, on the contrary, did not impact the interpretability or acceptability of the sentences. Moreover, only in experiment 3b did we find an interaction between metaphor type and signals. Specifically, when a metaphor was marked by double signals (i.e., both lexical signals and a typographical signal were added around the metaphorical keywords) vs. no signals, acceptability of novel metaphors increased, but acceptability of conventional metaphors decreased. We hypothesize that the double signaling of novel metaphors marks their novelty, making them more acceptable. By contrast, the double signaling of conventional metaphors may have been perceived as redundant, leading to a lower acceptability.

Investigating the effects of phonological neighborhood density, word frequency, and phoneme confusability on the English word recognition by native speakers of Japanese

This study aims to bridge the gap between previous research on the impact of phonological neighborhood density on word identification, which did not consider phoneme confusability, and studies on phoneme identification and discrimination, which did not account for the effects of phonological neighborhood density. Native Japanese listeners participated in this study, where they were tasked with identifying monosyllabic and disyllabic English words. The words varied in both phonological neighborhood density and word frequency and were produced by native speakers of American English and Japanese. Participants responded by typing the words they heard. The findings of this study indicated that there were no significant effects of phonological neighborhood density on word identification. However, frequent words were identified with greater accuracy compared to infrequent words. Moreover, words produced by native speakers of American English were more accurately identified than those produced by Japanese speakers. Japanese listeners' inaccurate perception of phonemes has resulted in word identification errors in both dense and sparse phonological neighborhoods. For example, they often mistakenly identify /l/ as /r/ and vice versa. Low and central vowels /æ, ɑ, ʌ/ are frequently misidentified as one another. These confusions are commonly observed among Japanese learners of English.

Is secondary stress phonetically real for second-language learners? Evidence from Japanese-accented English

Speakers of a non-stress language such as Japanese often have difficulty producing lexical stress distinctions in languages such as English. Distinguishing primary-stressed versus unstressed syllables may be difficult, but distinctions involving secondary stress may be even more challenging. Some studies report that Japanese learners of English (JE) do not distinguish secondary-stressed and unstressed syllables in terms of vowel duration and quality whereas native American English speakers (AE) do. However, the data are limited and inconclusive. To resolve this issue, the present study asked AE and two groups of JE differing in English proficiency to produce 83 English words that exhibit stress shift, e.g., phótogràph-phòtográphic-photógraphy and conducted acoustic analysis of vowels in corresponding positions, which have the same consonantal context but differ in stress level. Preliminary results indicate that JE frequently produce devoiced vowels in unstressed syllables, particularly in phonetic environments similar to where devoicing occurs in Japanese. Devoicing, however, does not seem to occur in secondary-stressed syllables, suggesting that JE might distinguish secondary-stressed and unstressed syllables with respect to devoicing. Results from duration and formant analysis will also be reported and discussed in relation to theories of native-language influences on second-language speech learning. [Work supported by JSPS.]

A Pragmatic Study of the Speech Act of Threatening between Jordanian and American Speakers

This paper investigates the speech act of making threats among native speakers of Jordanian Arabic (JA) and American English (AE). It explores new threat strategies used by Jordanian and American speakers and their pragmatic functions to construct an analytical framework for analyzing this act across cultures. The data for this study were collected using an open-ended questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of ten imaginary situations drawn from real life. The data were analyzed using chi-square tests (value <0.05) to determine whether the difference between the two groups for each threat strategy was statistically significant. The subjects of Jordanian Arabic included 40 male participants and 40 female participants from three universities in Irbid district while the American subjects included 15 male participants and 15 female participants from the University of Illinois in the United States. Five threat strategies were identified. Four of which were shared between the two groups: Telling Authority, Committing Harm, Introducing Options and Warning. However, Promise of Vague Consequence was confined to JA speakers. The study also found that JA speakers tended to be less direct than their AE counterparts.

Telicity judgments in L2 English by L1 Slovak speakers

Abstract The study investigates the acquisition of telicity in L2 English by L1 Slovak speakers as a function of L2 proficiency (measured by a cloze test score), exposure (operationalized as length of stay in an English-speaking country) and instruction type (monolingual vs. bilingual). Telicity judgments were collected from Slovak learners of L2 English (n = 50) and a control group of American English native speakers (n = 15) in two offline acceptability judgment tasks. Two types of telicity encoding were examined: (1) the contribution of the [±quantized] feature of the object argument to predicate telicity, which involves processes in narrow syntax; and (2) the contribution of adverbial modifiers to telicity interpretations, including coercion contexts, which involve processes of aspectual reinterpretation. Based on previous research, it was hypothesized that the contribution of the [±quantized] feature of the object argument to predicate telicity, which is a syntactic phenomenon, will be easier to acquire than aspectual coercion by means of adverbial modifiers, which relies on pragmatic cues. The results indicate that the most significant predictor of telicity judgments based on syntactic cues is L2 proficiency, while length of stay affects telicity judgments in predicate categories involving coercion contexts.

Prosodic location modulates listener’s perception of novel German sounds

<strong>This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.</strong> Interaction of sounds on the melodic tier (segments) with prosodic and phonotactic structure (syllabic context) in cross-language perception is not explicitly addressed by models of second language phonology (e.g., Perceptual Assimilation Model: Best, 1995). At initial stages of foreign language exposure, learners rely on position-specific phonetic detail more than native speakers or advanced learners, thus mappings according to prosodic and phonotactic context are a crucial factor in early interlanguage phonological development. In a perceptual assimilation experiment, we manipulated syllable position (onset vs. coda) and phonotactic complexity (simple vs. complex codas) in phonotactically similar languages for auditory presentation of six German obstruents (i.e., familiar [h k ʃ] and novel [ç x p͡f]) to native speakers of American English who had no previous exposure to German. By means of weighted proportions (Park & de Jong, 2008) and overlap scores (Levy, 2009), we found that [h k ʃ p͡f] mapped categorically to English orthographic categories <h>, <k>, <sh>, and <f>, respectively, in all positions, whereas the novel fricatives [ç x] exhibited distinct mapping patterns from each other, from other sounds, and according to syllable position. These results demonstrate profound influences of both prosodic and phonotactic contexts on perceptual assimilation of novel sounds.

The Influence of L2 English on Attitudes Towards Gender-Neutral Job Titles

This study examines the influence of L2 English on attitudes towards gender-neutral job titles. It aims to determine whether language influences perceptions of job titles. Data were collected via questionnaires from 67 participants aged 18-26 years, comprising American English native speakers, Arabic native speakers, and Kuwaiti learners of English. Results indicate that high-proficiency English learners tend to neutralize job titles instead of assigning gender markers, a behavior which is influenced by their exposure to English and cultural attitudes towards gender equality. Most native English speakers used neutral job titles instead of gender assignments. The two control groups demonstrated a significant difference in their responses, with Arabic monolinguals assigning gender markers based on the dominant gender in a particular profession. Additionally, language background and demographics affected these results. Attitudes towards gender markedness in job titles has received little attention from scholars studying Arabic&amp;ndash;English bilinguals. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by exploring attitudes towards gender markedness in job titles.

A comparative study of English vowel shifts and vowel space area among Korean Americans in three dialect regions

AbstractRecent sociophonetic research has focused on the ways in which race and ethnicity influence language as well as how language is used to construct racial and ethnic identity. Comparisons of the speech of members of one ethnic group across different regions are still uncommon. In this study, fifty-one native American English speakers of Korean descent, hailing from three different dialect areas of the United States (Los Angeles County and Orange County, California; Harris County, Texas; and Gwinnett County, Georgia), were recorded speaking English in casual interviews. Their speech was analyzed for characteristics of local sound patterns in each region, including the Short Front Vowel Shift (California Vowel Shift) and the Southern Vowel Shift, as well as overall Vowel Space Area. All three groups showed evidence of the Short Front Vowel Shift, and none demonstrated the Southern Vowel Shift. The Californian speakers had the smallest vowel spaces, while the Georgian speakers had the largest. We relate these findings to the ways Korean Americans in Texas and California understand their ethnic identity vis-à-vis a kind of metropolitan or urban speech style in a highly multicultural environment, while, in comparison, Korean Americans in Georgia may use vowel space to highlight their orientation toward or away from local mainstream (white) cultural identity.

Монгол, англи хэлний гуйх хэлэхүйн үйлдлийн зэрэгцүүлсэн судалгаа

The current study focused on cross-cultural comparison of requestive speech act realization patterns in Mongolian and English. This study aimed to compare patterns in the requests provided by native Mongolian speakers (n=86) and native speakers of American English (n=87) under the same social constraints involving nine different situations. Data were gathered through the discourse completion test (DCT) in which the participants were asked to complete the discourse with appropriate request patterns consistent with the given situation. Students were undergraduate students (sophomores and juniors) in their native countries. The data were processed in accordance with request strategies developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1984). According to the degree of directness, all request strategies were classified into three major categories, particularly (1) direct strategies, (2) conventionally indirect strategies, and (3) unconventionally indirect strategies.

Acoustic characteristics of English/n, l, t, k/ produced by native speakers of American English and Japanese at and near the word boundary

The acoustic characteristics of English /n, l, t, k/ produced by native speakers of American English and Japanese at and near the word boundary are compared. The phonemes are produced in two-word sequences in sentence contexts, /n/ or /l/ appears at the end of the first word (e.g., an earth, you'll earn) or at the beginning of the second word (e.g., a nurse, you learn), while /t/ or /k/ appears at the beginning of the second word (e.g., stops talking, ice cream) or as the second segment of the initial cluster /sk/ of the second word (e.g., stop stalking, I screamed). Acoustic analysis revealed that English speakers' /n/ in coda position is shorter and creakier, while Japanese speakers' /n/ is as long as in onset. In addition, English speakers' vowels in /Vl#/ context are more velarized than vowels in /V#l/ context, whereas Japanese speakers' vowels in /Vl#/ context are less /l/-colored. English speakers produced initial /t/ and /k/ with much longer VOT than in /st/, /sk/ conditions, but because Japanese voiceless stops are weakly aspirated, Japanese speakers /t/ and /k/ not significantly different in VOT between the two contexts, leading potentially to syllable misparsing by English listeners

The role of the tongue back on contrasting voicing properties of English coda consonants: Evidence from an ultrasound imaging technique

This study explores how voicing properties of stop consonants at the coda of a syllable are reflected in the articulation of the tongue back in American English. The association between the laryngeal control of the voicing property of consonants and the positioning of the tongue back has been increasingly reported (e.g., Ahn, 2018; Coretta, 2020). A recent study (Coretta, 2020) reported that longer vowel duration indicating the following voiced stop consonant corresponds to greater tongue root advancement at the offset of the vowel in Italian and Polish. Since the vowel with a following voiced stop consonant has a longer duration than that with a voiceless stop consonant, the later offset of TB movement should be correlated with the offset of vocal folds vibration in American English as well. The preliminary result suggests that the later offset of TB advancement is positively correlated with the longer vowel duration of voiced consonants at the coda of a syllable; therefore, contrasting voicing property of coda consonants in English is phonological and phonetically evidenced in the articulation of the tongue back. Articulatory data from ultrasound images of the tongue from three native speakers of American English will be presented.

Validating acoustic predictors of sentence intelligibility using a racially diverse corpus

The goal of the present work is to validate a set of widely used acoustic measures that have been found to predict talker intelligibility using a new, racially diverse corpus of native speakers of American English. Previous work by Bradlow et al (1996, Speech Communication) predicted sentence intelligibility on a set of 20 demographically unspecified talkers from the Midwest, where they found changes in F0 and larger vowel spaces to be associated with higher sentence intelligibility. Here, we examine whether these same acoustic features can be generalized to a more racially diverse population of talkers, of which only 9 are white and non-Latine. The current corpus comprises 28 talkers, where each talker produced 60 sentences. Here, we focus on a core set of sentences, 10 Havard/IEEE and 10 BEL sentences, that all 28 talkers produced. Key acoustic features such as F0, speaking rate, and first and second formants of vowels, were extracted to associate with intelligibility measurements for these individuals. Intelligibility measures are taken from a previous study (Tripp et al., 2022, J. Acoust. Soc. Am.). Results from the present work are important in generalizing which acoustic features impact intelligibility in a racially diverse corpus.

Gender, but not speech material, affects extended high-frequencylevels in the speech spectrum

Current evidence suggests extended high-frequency (EHF) speech cues support speech perception. Audibility of these cues likely depends on speech spectral levels at EHFs. These levels may vary across genders and different speech materials. In this study, we investigated the effect of talker gender and speech materials on EHF levels in speech. A group of 30 (15female) native speakers of American-English was recruited to participate in this study. A three-minute spontaneous narrative was recorded for each participant along with a subset of the Bamford-Kowal-Bench (BKB) sentences. An ERB-scaled long-term average speech spectrum was calculated for the narrative and for the BKB sentences for each subject. Linear mixed-effects models were used to test intersubject and intrasubject variability in 8 EHF ERB bands. There was a significant effect of gender with female EHF levels ∼4 dB higher than male EHF levels. Within-subjects comparison of BKB sentences and narratives revealed no significant difference in EHF levels between speech materials. These findings highlight the possibility that EHFs could play a more prominent role in female speech perception than male speech perception, and suggest that EHF levels are relatively stable across speech materials for a given talker. [Work supported by NIH under Grant No. R01-DC019745.]

Clear speech improves word segmentation in quiet and in noise: Evidence from visual-world eye-tracking

Listener-oriented hyperarticulated clear speech facilitates linguistic processing and cognitive functioning associated with speech perception under various listening conditions. Using the visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, we investigated whether clear speech also aids speech segmentation, or the discovery of word boundaries, and examined the dynamic time course of its effect. Native American English speakers (N = 77) heard sentences in which the target word (e.g., ham) was temporarily ambiguous with a longer unintended competitor (e.g., hamster) across a word boundary (e.g., She saw the ham starting…) while viewing images depicting the target, competitor, and unrelated distractors. Clear and conversational sentences were presented in quiet or in speech-shaped noise at +3 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Analysis of eye fixations to the images over time revealed that compared with conversational speech, clear speech facilitated the disambiguation of the target from the competitor even before the disambiguation point was reached. The facilitation was found in both listening conditions but was relatively delayed in noise. These findings suggest that speaking clearly improves word segmentation and reduces lexical competition especially in optimal listening conditions. The speech segmentation facilitation may partly underlie the clear speech benefits observed for other signal-dependent and relatively signal-independent linguistic and cognitive processes.

Examining the Relationship Between Task-Switching and Speech Errors in Parkinson's Disease

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To establish the link between cognitive flexibility deficits and errors in speech production in Parkinson's disease (PD). A secondary goal is to show that this relationship exists despite the presentation of "normal" overall cognitive functioning on a standard screening test (Montreal Cognitive Battery; MoCA). <h3>Design</h3> Regression (between-subjects). <h3>Setting</h3> University. <h3>Participants</h3> Fifteen people with PD and 15 adult controls participated in this study. All were native speakers of American English, had no upper respiratory tract infections, and passed depression and hearing screenings. People with PD varied on a continuum of overall disease and speech severity. Controls had no history of hearing, speech-language, or neurological disorders. All study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board. <h3>Interventions</h3> N/A. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> 1) Metrics of cognitive flexibility (reaction times, error rates) 2) MoCA scores, speech errors (articulation errors, stuttering-like disfluencies, and other disfluencies) and 3) Speech rate. <h3>Results</h3> Results show that people with PD would present with impaired cognitive flexibility (slower reaction times to switch demands compared to controls) despite falling within normal range on standard clinical screenings of cognition (MoCA) and that people with PD and controls show an inverse relationship between cognitive flexibility and the number of errors during speech production with group differences in both flexibility and speech error rates occurring. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Our findings suggest that impairments in cognition in PD may occur earlier than previously thought and may only be apparent on more sensitive tests of cognitive flexibility that are typically not performed as standard-of-care. A relationship between cognitive flexibility and speech errors suggests a role of cognitive flexibility during speech-motor control. These deficits should be considered when recommending therapy and designing interventions. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> Funding for this work is through an internal grant by Seton Hall University. No other relevant disclosures.

English in Nepal: Attitudes Towards Nepali English or Other Varieties of English

Since the emergence of varieties of English, varying debates and discussions about their formal features, functions, and roles have persisted worldwide. This quantitative survey research aims to identify the attitudes of Nepali speakers of English towards Nepali English (NE) and other varieties of English. Using the survey questionnaire, the researcher collected primary data through online and face-to-face modes from one hundred participants sampled randomly, out of which fifty participants were the English language teachers from different schools and community campuses and fifty participants were Master level students, including those students pursuing their Master level thesis from a community campus of Morang district. The participants’ attitudes were analyzed and interpreted in terms of intelligibility, nature of standard, identity, practicality, and acceptance. The study showed that most participants were positive towards NE and most of them responded that they can better understand English spoken by NE speakers than British English (BE) or American English (AE) native speakers. However, majority of them were not against BE or AE in terms of intelligibility, nature of standard, and practicality though they supported NE more.

Individual variations in vocal and cognitive responses to simulated acoustic environments

Humans “automatically” make vocal and speech adjustments in response to room acoustics; however, it is unclear whether these adjustments require additional cognitive load. Beyond this automatic adjustment, speakers may have to employ a speech production technique to enhance their intelligibility in situations such as public speaking. How does room acoustics challenge speakers on such occasions? Understanding the relationship between room acoustics, speech production, and cognitive load has practical implications for various areas, including speech training and room design. This study describes the associated change in cognitive load when speaking with and without a speech production technique at three levels of reverberation time (i.e., 0.05 s, 1.2 s, and 1.83 s at 125 Hz). Ten adult native speakers of American English were asked to read sentences in simulated acoustic environments using two types of speech production: habitual speech and clear speech, an intelligibility-enhancing technique. Cognitive load during the speech tasks was monitored with pupillometry and a subjective self-rating scale. Participants’ speech production behaviors were acoustically assessed via speech rate and alpha ratio. Preliminary results indicate that reverberation time significantly affects speech production behaviors and cognitive load and that the pattern of cognitive response varies substantially among the speakers.

Prosodic features conveying doubt and trust

Research in affective prosody has shown that doubt (specifically, incredulity) is communicated through distinctive features like a slower speech rate, greater variability in fundamental frequency (F0), and a characteristic F0 pattern including an utterance final rise in F0. However, the opposite of doubt, trust (or belief), has not been examined as a prosodically distinct attitude. In response, this study explores the full range of doubt and trust native speakers of American English can express through prosody. In a web-based production experiment, we asked 30 participants to produce 12 utterances in neutral, trusting, and doubting prosody. A multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that incredulous prosody differed significantly from neutral prosody primarily in its lower initial F0 and longer duration. Trust also differed from neutrality, with a significantly higher utterance initial F0 and less amplitude variability than was observed in neutral utterances. In a perception experiment, 115 participants listened to 36 tokens collected from the production experiment and were asked whether the talker expressed doubt or trust. Participants were generally accurate in their judgement of talker attitude, and acoustic variables of utterance-initial F0 and speech rate significantly predicted participant ratings of the talker's doubt or trust.