Production Of English Words Research Articles

Mobile application-based phonetic training facilitates Chinese-English learners’ learning of L2

BackgroundNumerous studies have claimed that high variability phonetic training (HVPT) has significant efficacy in improving learners’ phonological decoding ability. Although mobile learning (ML) based HVPT program integrated with sound instructional design also demonstrated the effectiveness, its reliability and validity need to be further verified. AimsThis study evaluated the training's efficacy in improving Chinese learners' perception and production of English words by comparing learners' brain activation changes and network connectivity changes because of the training. SamplesParticipants were 40 undergraduate students. MethodsThis study developed a Wechat application to implement a self-regulated high-variability-phonetic-training (HVPT) for 20 university students; employed a modified phonics screening test (MPST) as a benchmark test to assess learners’ phonetic decoding ability before and after the training; designed a quasi-experiment (control/experimental design) for 40 participants; most importantly, this study used a functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device to monitor brain activation and networks synchronisation for participants in both groups before and after training. ResultsThe results showed that learners' performance on 5-phoneme pseudowords was significantly improved. The training inhibited learners’ right fusiform gyrus. A significant correlation was observed between enhanced RMTG and increased testing scores. ConclusionThe transfer effect of Mobile MVPT on long pseudowords is significant, suggesting its efficacy in helping learners apply the phonetic patterns perceived from the training to segmentally analyse new difficult words.

The Effect of English Songs on Chinese Students’ Acquisition of Word Stress in a Rural Junior High School

Few studies have examined how teaching English songs to junior high school students in rural areas affects students’ English pronunciation. To fill this gap, we taught English songs to 39 rural junior high school students and tested their perception and production of English words with different stress patterns before and after the session of learning English songs. Students were asked to identify the position of word stress for a list of disyllabic words, and they were asked to read the disyllabic words with different stress placements. Teachers evaluated the students’ pre-test and post-test performance, and acoustic measures were taken to compare their pronunciation in two sessions. After two weeks, the production test revealed an improvement in the students’ ability to produce English stress. In the post-test, students could more effectively use the duration cue to distinguish between stressed and unstressed syllables. However, students’ perception improvement was not attested. The findings generally indicated that English songs have a beneficial impact on junior high school students in rural areas who are learning English word stress.

어중자음이 유무성 대조를 이루는 영어 단어 발화 연구

어중자음이 유무성 대조를 이루는 영어 단어 발화 연구

The phonological preparation unit in the production of English words by Korean learners

This study investigated how speakers of two languages differing in phonological preparation unit in planning spoken words encode a functional unit of their second language (L2). It was shown that the first phoneme of a word is a functional unit in English, whereas Korean has a strong syllable but not onset phoneme effects. Two groups of native Korean speakers depending on their length of residence in English-speaking countries were asked to name pictures in English, and the names shared the same onsets, rhymes, or had nothing systematically in common. The results showed that 1) no onset effect was shown regardless of length of residence, suggesting that L2 learners’ phonological preparation unit is influenced by their native language functional unit; and 2) there was a rhyme interference effect regardless of length of residence, probably due to lexical competition. However, upon close inspection of the results of individual speakers, L2 learners are able to attend to the target language unit if they are extensively exposed to L2 phonology.

The role of cross-linguistic stress pattern frequency and word similarity on the acquisition of English stress pattern by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

This is a preliminary study in which we investigate the acquisition of English as second language (L2[1]) word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1[2]). In this paper, we show results of a multiple choice forced choice perception test in which native speakers of American English and native speakers of Dutch judged the production of English words bearing pre-final stress that were both cognates and non-cognates with BP words. The tokens were produced by native speakers of American English and by Brazilians that speak English as a second language. The results have shown that American and Dutch listeners were consistent in their judgments on native and non-native stress productions and both speakers' groups produced variation in stress in relation to the canonical pattern. However, the variability found in American English points to the prosodic patterns of English and the variability found in Brazilian English points to the stress patterns of Portuguese. It occurs especially in words whose forms activate neighboring similar words in the L1. Transfer from the L1 appears both at segmental and prosodic levels in BP English. [1] L2 stands for second language, foreign language, target language. [2] L1 stands for first language, mother tongue, source language.

A Study of Korean EFL Learners’ Perceptions and Productions of English Words in Connected Speech

A Study of Korean EFL Learners’ Perceptions and Productions of English Words in Connected Speech

Production and perception of voicing and devoicing in similar German and English word pairs by native speakers of German

German manifests a phonological pattern of word-final consonant devoicing, with an underlying voicing contrast that is largely “neutralized” in speech, whereas English has a surface voicing contrast in final position. This raises questions concerning how well native German speakers learning English can produce a voicing contrast in English while continuing to neutralize the underlying German contrast, and especially how German speakers produce similar word pairs in the two languages (e.g., English: rod/rot; German: Rad/Rat). The present study examined the speech of 13 native Germans producing words in both languages and 13 native English speakers’ productions of English words. Acoustic analyses indicated that the native Germans showed more evidence of a final voicing distinction when producing English words than for phonologically similar German words. However, they typically produced fewer or less robust acoustic cues to word-final voicing when speaking English than the native English speakers did. An auditory word identification task also assessed intelligibility of German-accented and native English for German and English listeners. In contrast to studies showing an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit, German listeners found native English speech to be more intelligible than German-accented English for the English word-final voicing contrast; they also did not find German-accented English more intelligible than native English listeners did.

End-state comfort governs kinematic variation in English flap/tap sequences.

Derrick & Gick [Can. Acoust. 36(3), 162 (2008)] found that North American English flap/tap singletons are produced using up to four phonetically conditioned kinematic variants (up-flaps, down-flaps, postalveolar taps, and alveolar taps), dependent on the position of the tongue tip in neighboring rhotic and nonrhotic vowels. Our pilot work has shown that sequences of multiple flap/tap variants are highly mechanically interdependent (e.g., subjects never produce two up-flaps or two down-flaps in adjacent syllables). The present study tests flap/tap sequences for compliance with “end-state comfort” [Rosenbaum et al., Acta Psychologica 94, 59 (1996)], as evidence for look-ahead planning. Twelve subjects’ tongue positions were measured during production of English words and word pairs with one- and two-flap sequences. Results show that sequences of flaps end with a preferred tongue tip position. For example, for 11 subjects, the /d/ of “edit” is realized as an alveolar tap or down-flap in “edit the,” but an up-flap in “edit a,” both facilitating ending the sequence with a low tongue position. A general avoidance of a sequence-final up-flap was also observed, such that /d/ of “edify” is an alveolar-tap or down-flap, while, for eight subjects, “editor” shows an up-flap, postalevolar tap sequence. [Work supported by NSERC.]

Relationships between the intelligibility and acoustic properties of native English and Mandarin-accented English

Studies examining effects of talkers’ and listeners’ linguistic backgrounds on speech intelligibility have produced mixed results, and relatively little is known about which acoustic-phonetic features of native and non-native speech are responsible for many findings. These issues are addressed here via investigation of how acoustic properties of final consonant voicing contrasts influence word intelligibility. Native English and native Mandarin talkers’ productions of English words were presented in isolation to native English and native Mandarin listeners in an identification task. Intelligibility findings were related to preceding vowel duration, stop consonant duration, burst duration, and proportion of voicing during stop closure. As expected, native English listeners were more accurate identifying words spoken by native than non-native talkers. In contrast to previous findings of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB) for sentences, non-native listeners found native speech more intelligible than non-native speech. However, non-native listeners found non-native speech more intelligible than did native listeners. For native talkers, all four acoustic measures contributed significantly to correct identification of voicing contrasts by both native and non-native listeners (with closure voicing most salient). In contrast, for non-native talkers, listeners tended to rely primarily on closure voicing and burst duration. Ramifications for ISIB will be discussed.

Children's consonant inventories after extended cochlear implant use.

Qualitative descriptions of the consonant inventories of 12 children who have used cochlear implants for at least 5 years are provided, together with description of sound correspondences between children's systems and the ambient language (English). Productions of English words were elicited in a picture-naming task, and a consonant inventory for each child was determined. Results showed that the consonant inventories of children who use cochlear implants are not simply subsets of the inventory of the ambient language, but rather unique sets of segments that may include consonants not in the ambient inventory. Comparison of the inventories of oral communication users and total communication users revealed qualitative differences between the 2 groups, based on the presence or absence of both English and non-English sound segments. Inventories of oral communication users tended to contain more English segments (e.g., alveolar fricatives, velar stops, velar nasals) than did the inventories of total communication users. Conversely, specific non-English segments, such as uvular stops, tended to occur in the inventories of total communication users more than in inventories of oral communication users. Therefore, a complete understanding of the phonological systems of children who use cochlear implants depends on full accounts of their segment inventories. Such understanding may affect decisions regarding habilitation procedures, insofar as successful acquisition of a linguistic system involves not only the inclusion of all ambient sound segments, but also the exclusion of all nonambient ones.