Prosodic Competence Research Articles

Competencia prosódica del alumnado bilingüe universitario en la lectura en voz alta: producción y percepción

The aim of this work is to analyze the prosodic competence of bilingual university students of the Basque Country in two areas of the oral language: production and perception. Once collected and studied the data in the production of reading aloud, perception tests are used in order to know the prosodic group best valued in reading aloud, for this an experimental investigation has been carried out based on the more general characteristics of the prosodic groups. 101 bilingual young people took part in the study. They read news aloud for further phonetic analysis. The result of the data obtained with a Chi-square test in tonal peaks shows that gender is statistically significant. In the case of perception, mother tongue affects significantly in assessing stimuli that are manipulated.

Die Integration prosodischen und syntaktischen Wissens bei der Ermittlung der Textkohärenz im schriftlichen Textverstehen

Reading is a highly complex cognitive process. From a neurobiological point of view, it involves at least six linguistic sub-competences including orthographic, semantic, syntactic, phonetic and prosodic competence. Each of these skills is required of the reader to extract different types of information from the text, ranging from the perceptual and the syntactic to the lexical and pragmasemantic one. Based on the main results of cognitive-oriented research on text and reading, this paper illustrates how prosodic competence, combined with formal coherence patterns, can be considered and employed as a reading strategy, enabling the reader to progressively grasp the meanings of a text. In the first part particular attention will be paid to the description of the syntax-prosody interface as well as of its function as a means of encoding of information structure in German. With regard to the teaching of German as a foreign language, the second part of the paper will present a method to train intonational reading. This approach aims to raise foreign language readers’ awareness of prosodic features of written texts and to introduce them to melodic patterns which can be encountered while reading. Such a practical training may prove to be advantageous, as the most typical and apparently “uncorrectable” errors committed by foreign language learners when speaking and reading German texts are almost always related to the domains of phonology and prosody.

Prosodic development from 4 to 10 years: Data from the Italian adaptation of the PEPS-C

• The development of prosodic functions covers a long period, till adolescence. • The PEPS-C evaluates the prosodic competence in both comprehension and expression. • The Italian version aimed to describe the developmental trajectories in this language. • The cross-linguistic comparison showed similarities and differences amongst languages. The development of prosody covers a long age period, with some functions not well-mastered till adolescence. Moreover, languages show different prosodic developmental trajectories, which can be related to their distinctive characteristics. The Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C) consists of a battery of tasks developed to analyse this competence in both comprehension and expression. It takes into account several prosodic functions (including both affective and linguistic functions). Easy to administer and to score, it has demonstrated its usefulness in the evaluation of prosodic competence from preschool age and in several languages. The main aim of the present work is to investigate the development of prosodic competence in a group of Italian children from four to ten years of age through the administration of the Italian version of the PEPS-C. The results confirm that prosodic development covers a long age period for Italian too: indeed, while the affective function of prosody seemed to be well-mastered from the preschool period, other functions, like use of the prosodic focus, are not well-mastered till late, after the age of ten years. The developmental trajectories found are discussed in relation to those found for languages other than Italian.

Acoustic Account of Prosodic Competence through Shadowing

Adopting an acoustic framework, this experimental study elucidates the effect of shadowing technique on prosodic competence of learners of English whose L1 (Arabic) and English have quite dissimilar phonological systems. It is appertained to prosodic aspects such as pauses, stress, and sound length that cause challenges to non-English native speakers. Two individuals of heterogeneous linguistic background participated in a pre-test and a post-test before and after five weeks of shadowing sessions. The data was analyzed acoustically using Praat Software. Findings showed that the participant with the elementary level outperformed the other participant whose level was intermediate, partially because the former was highly motivated to improve her English. The study concluded that shadowing per se is no way a panacea for improving supra-segmental features unless it is coupled with a motivation to do so, regardless of the level of proficiency. Keywords: Pauses, Pronunciation, Prosody, Shadowing, Supra-segmental Features

Prosodic Competence as the Missing Component of Reading Processes Across Languages: Theory, Evidence and Future Research

ABSTRACT Referring to the “vital parts” of speech that do not appear in print, E. B. Huey (1908/1968) described prosody in reading as “the rise and fall of pitch and inflection, the hurrying here and slowing there, what we have called the melody of speech.” In this paper, we discuss the role prosody plays in reading, contextualized in the Reading Systems Framework, as a source of linguistic knowledge that impacts the orthographic system, the lexicon, and comprehension processes in tonal and non-tonal languages. Prosody at the word, phrase, and discourse levels is considered. We also review empirical evidence from experimental, longitudinal, and training studies to show the current state of knowledge about the role of prosodic competence in reading development. We conclude the paper with recommendations for future directions in research.

Analysis of atypical prosodic patterns in the speech of people with Down syndrome

The speech of people with Down syndrome (DS) shows prosodic features which are distinct from those observed in the oral productions of typically developing (TD) speakers. Although a different prosodic realization does not necessarily imply wrong expression of prosodic functions, atypical expression may hinder communication skills. The focus of this work is to ascertain whether this can be the case in individuals with DS. To do so, we analyze the acoustic features that better characterize the utterances of speakers with DS when expressing prosodic functions related to emotion, turn-end and phrasal chunking, comparing them with those used by TD speakers. An oral corpus of speech utterances has been recorded using the PEPS-C prosodic competence evaluation tool. We use automatic classifiers to prove that the prosodic features that better predict prosodic functions in TD speakers are less informative in speakers with DS. Although atypical features are observed in speakers with DS when producing prosodic functions, the intended prosodic function can be identified by listeners and, in most cases, the features correctly discriminate the function with analytical methods. However, a greater difference between the minimal pairs presented in the PEPS-C test is found for TD speakers in comparison with DS speakers. The proposed methodological approach provides, on the one hand, an identification of the set of features that distinguish the prosodic productions of DS and TD speakers and, on the other, a set of target features for therapy with speakers with DS.

Developing L2 prosodic competence online: Implications of the emergency remote teaching

This paper addresses the issue of transferring L2 prosody teaching to online settings due to the lockdown. The reasons are provided to account for the vulnerable status of pronunciation teaching and related risks. We report the results of the research project carried out in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology with forty Russianspeaking engineering students. In this study a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used. The study first provided a critique of preexisting computer-based pronunciation training (CAPT) options ensuring learning continuity. These options were then analyzed against global educational policies related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on this understanding, a methodological framework was designed to bridge the gap between prosody teaching goals and digital tools. At the next stage, experimental teaching was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of this framework. Once data from the interviews, rating scales and participant observation were collected, a descriptive analysis of the results was given. The findings showed that the suggested training had an important effect on L2 prosody acquisition by engineering students

Narrative and prosodic skills in children and adolescents with Down syndrome and typically developing children

Purpose Children with Down Syndrome (DS) show difficulties in language development, in both basic and complex abilities, as narratives. Less is known about the prosodic competence in DS, but the few available studies highlighted the presence of some deficits. Considering the importance of narratives and prosody in communication, the main aim of this study is to investigate these two competencies in participants with DS. Method 13 children with DS participated (Mean age: 13;04, years; months). Their narrative and prosodic abilities, collected through a storytelling task, were compared with those of two control groups of typically developing (TD) children, one matched for nonverbal mental age (MA, Mean age: 5;03) and the other matched for the mean length of utterance (MLU, Mean age: 5;05). For the narrative competence, we considered both the macrostructural (i.e. quantity of information and story structure) and the microstructural level (i.e. verbal productivity, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity). For the prosodic competence, we took into account acoustic measures linked to intonation (i.e. mean fundamental frequency (f0), pitch range, final speech profile, and speed of speech). Result The results of the Mann-Whitney test showed that participants with DS produced stories comparable to those of TD children in nearly all the variables considered, except for the syntactic complexity when compared with children of the same MA. Differences between participants with DS and TD children were found in the f0 and the final pitch profile used. Conclusion Considering the small size of the samples, these preliminary results should be taken with caution. Nonetheless, this study confirms the presence of difficulties in the prosody of speech and in the syntactic competence of children with DS. These difficulties could have consequences on the possibility to communicate efficiently and should be taken into account in rehabilitation programmes.

Analyzing second language proficiency using wavelet-based prominence estimates

Prosodic characteristics, such as lexical and phrasal stress, are one of the most challenging features for second language (L2) speakers to learn. The ability to quantify language learners’ proficiency in terms of prosody can be of use to language teachers and improve the assessment of L2 speaking skills. Automatic assessment, however, requires reliable automatic analyses of prosodic features that allow for the comparison between the productions of L2 speech and reference samples. In this paper we investigate whether signal-based syllable prominence can be used to predict the prosodic competence of Finnish learners of Swedish. Syllable-level prominence was estimated for 180 L2 and 45 native (L1) utterances by a continuous wavelet transform analysis using combinations of f0, energy, and duration. The L2 utterances were graded by four expert assessors using the revised CEFR scale for prosodic features. Correlations of prominence estimates for L2 utterances with estimates for L1 utterances and linguistic stress patterns were used as a measure of prosodic proficiency of the L2 speakers. The results show that the level of agreement conceptualized in this way correlates significantly with the assessments of expert raters, providing strong support for the use of the wavelet-based prominence estimation techniques in computer-assisted assessment of L2 speaking skills.

КОМПЛЕКС ВПРАВ ДЛЯ ФОРМУВАННЯ АНГЛОМОВНИХ ПРОСОДИЧНИХ НАВИЧОК У ГОВОРІННІ УЧНІВ СТАРШИХ КЛАСІВ ЗАГАЛЬНООСВІТНІХ ШКІЛ

Background: The importance of mastering good pronunciation is undeniable. According to the current curricular for secondary schools, high school students have to produce phonetically correct speech. The purpose of studying phonetics is to shape the standard phonetic image of the phonemes and intonation patterns and make use of them in speech. The observation of the educational process shows that the level of prosodic competence of high school students in Ukraine is quite low, the special exercises and tasks for improving the pronunciation skills in textbooks are almost not presented. Purpose: The objective of this paper is to develop a complex of exercises to teach prosody and intonation at high school. The authors examine the differences between English and Ukrainian prosodic constituents, and on the basis of this analysis suggests the ways to master each component in the developed tasks. Results and Discussion: By focusing on certain differences between the prosodic systems of the English and Ukrainian languages the study presented in the article has provided possible ways to improve the prosodic skills of high school students. The further perspective of the study relates to developing, expanding, piloting and modifying tasks and exercises for mastering prosody

Wartość komunikacyjno-emotywna komponentów prozodycznych w wypowiedziach dziennikarzy politycznych

The purpose of the text is to evaluate the prosodic competence of Polish Radio journalists. The object of the acoustic analysis are the recordings of a morning broadcast called “Signals of the day”, made in February 2019. For the purpose of the study, I assume that prosody is a research field within linguistics, through which we understand all sound phenomena of a language that belongs to words, among which we distinguish three most important elements (accent, intonation, and pause) occurring singly or in combinations. When describing the sound layer of a language, I use the proprietary classification of prosodic components only taking into account the variant of their implementation. In the recorded material, I am looking for examples of impressive and effective use of prosodic tools of speech: on the one hand, supporting the process of understanding the message, while on the other hand, introducing new meanings to speech, added to the basic meaning resulting from the meaning of individual words.

Bilingual children do not transfer stress patterns: Evidence from suprasegmental and segmental analysis of L1 and L2 speech of Polish–English child bilinguals

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The study examines bilingual children’s prosodic competence, specifically the ability to correctly assign word stress in both languages, and contrasts it with participants’ segmental competence. To this end, we estimated and compared the magnitude of prosodic and segmental transfer in L1 and L2 speech of typically developing Polish–English migrant bilingual children raised in the UK. We also explored the influence of cumulative language exposure on both types of transfer. Design/methodology/approach: A non-word repetition task was used in both languages to assess children’s faithfulness in repeating segmentals and stress patterns in two to five syllable-long items. Also, a parental questionnaire on cumulative language exposure was conducted to estimate the quality of input in both languages. All children ( N = 59, M = 5;8) were early bilinguals raised in the UK. Data and analysis: A 2x2 ANOVA and a correlation analysis were conducted to compare the magnitude of prosodic and segmental transfer, within and across languages. Also, multiple regression analysis was performed to establish the predictors of transfer in L1 and L2. Findings/conclusions: The bilingual children repeated stress patterns in both languages correctly, showing resistance to transfer in word stress, even though bidirectional transfer was observed in segmentals. The magnitude of segmental transfer in Polish and English was predicted by cumulative exposure to English, while prosodic transfer in Polish was predicted by cumulative exposure to Polish. Originality and significance/implications: The study provides evidence on word stress placement in the age group of bilingual children, 4–7 years of age, in comparison with segmental data. It uses a novel methodology in comparing the magnitude of transfer between prosody and segmentals, within and across languages. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of language exposure for reducing the amount of segmental transfer in this group of children.

The Effect of Using Authentic Videos on Training Center and Community Service Students'Prosodic Competence and Motivation

This study aims at investigating the effect of using authentic videos on training center and community service students' prosodic competence and motivation. Its sample consisted of 50 male students randomly chosen from Training Center and Community Service at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, and assigned to experimental and control groups of 25 students per each. Its data were gathered within a two- month period using a pre-post-test design for equivalent groups. The researcher taught both groups deliberately using contrasting instructional approaches; the first were solely exposed to textbook content, excluding all visual aids throughout the process; whereas the second had authentic videos incorporated. As his work pressed ahead, these methodological techniques variably had a visible influence on the trainees' in-class interactivity, attentiveness, and keenness to grasp information. Accordingly, the findings show the experimental group's students bolstered their prosodic competence and motivation. To recap, the use of authentic videos in teaching and learning English has a positive effect on the said prosodic competence and motivation domains.

Can second language suprasegmentals be learned? A study on Japanese learners of Italian as foreign language

One of the biggest challenges for L2 learners is to develop native-like prosodic competence. There are evidence that computer-assisted pronunciation training helps learners perceive and produce L2 suprasegmentals. In this study we test to the effectiveness of one of the techniques developed in the area of spoken language technology for education and language learning—self-imitation—to facilitate the acquisition of the rhythmic and prosodic characteristics of Italian. 7 Japanese learners of Italian as Foreign language (NNSs) and 2 Italian native speakers (NSs) were asked to read aloud and record two sentences in Italian conveying different pragmatic functions. The utterances of NNSs were manipulated as they receive the segmental durational characteristics as well as the f0 characteristics of the corresponding NSs’ utterances. NNSs imitated their own voice previously modified to match the reference NSs and recorded the new performance. To quantify the degree of approximation to the native prosodic and rhythmic pattern after self-imitation, pre- and post-training utterances were compared to those of the native models by speech rate, f0, and segmental durational characteristics. Preliminary results show that after the training utterance duration and vocalic intervals length better match the target duration.

The Effect of Using Authentic Videos on Training Center and Community Service Students' Prosodic Competence and Motivation

This study aims at investigating the effect of using authentic videos on training center and community service students' prosodic competence and motivation. Its sample consisted of 50 male students randomly chosen from Training Center and Community Service at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, and assigned to experimental and control groups of 25 students per each. Its data were gathered within a two- month period using a pre-post-test design for equivalent groups. The researcher taught both groups deliberately using contrasting instructional approaches; the first were solely exposed to textbook content, excluding all visual aids throughout the process; whereas the second had authentic videos incorporated. As his work pressed ahead, these methodological techniques variably had a visible influence on the trainees' in-class interactivity, attentiveness, and keenness to grasp information. Accordingly, the findings show the experimental group's students bolstered their prosodic competence and motivation. To recap, the use of authentic videos in teaching and learning English has a positive effect on the said prosodic competence and motivation domains.

Emotional and linguistic prosody development in Polish children: Three different paths

AbstractThe development of prosodic competence in children is a complex process. Various, often conflicting developmental paths have been proposed in the literature, with both the general testing method and language specific factors seeming to be responsible for the variety of the outcomes. In the present study receptive prosodic skills of over 100 Polish children aged 3;6–11 were assessed and compared to the skills of young adults (20–30) in three tasks; emotion recognition of single word utterances, question vs. statement distinction, and synthetic vs. recorded human voice discrimination. No age effect was found in the emotion recognition task; the question vs. statement distinction ability had a clear developmental threshold at the age between 7 and 8, and the ability to spot rhythmic and temporal distortions of synthetic speech gradually improved with age, but was generally not developed in 3;6 to 5;6 year olds. The results suggest a complex path of acquisition of the above skills.

Poetry, Prosody, Parody

AbstractMy essay, “Poetry, Prosody, Parody: Mark Twain's Rhythmic Thought,” argues that although Mark Twain was primarily a prose writer and thinker, poetry and prosody nevertheless exerted a significant influence on his writing and thinking. I begin by analyzing a few of Twain's poems in order to establish his basic prosodic competence. I then look to Twain's prose writings, in particular Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in order to demonstrate poetry's influence on his exploration of death and the limits of language. Finally, I allude to the ways in which Twain employs the rhythms of language in his humor and in his explorations of race, class, and gender. I conclude that Twain's work exhibits the sort of “word-musicianship” that he finds lacking in the fiction of James Fenimore Cooper and that, furthermore, prosody helps Twain to think through a variety of crucial issues.

An acoustic phonetic study on the production accuracy of lexical stress contrasts in Arabic and Mandarin-accented English

The researcher explored the socio-morphophonetic characteristics of English as a second language lexical prosodic competence. One hundred participants from Midwest USA (29), Saudi Arabia (38), and China (33) were recorded producing English lexical stress (ELS) in tokens containing seven different stress-moving suffixes—[-ic], [-ical], [-ity], [-ian], [-ify], [-ial], and [-ious]. Fundamental frequency, duration, and intensity productions were analyzed using Praat. In total, 2125 vowels in 800 spectrograms were analyzed (excluding stress placement and pronunciation errors). Statistical sampling techniques were used to evaluate acquisition of accurate ELS production versus native language and language proficiency. Speech samples of native-speakers were analyzed to provide norm values for cross-reference and to provide insights into the proposed Salience Hierarchy of the Acoustic Correlates of Stress (SHACS). The results support the notion that a SHACS does exist in the L1 sound system and that native-like command is attainable for English language learners through increased study/L2 input. Saudi English speakers, who often do not fully reduce vowels, produced durational contrasts more accurately when they had studied English for longer. Similarly, proficient Chinese learners of English seemed to be able to overcome negative transfer from their tonal system as they produced pitch in a more native-like manner.

Dysprosodic speech following basal ganglia insult: Toward a conceptual framework for the study of the cerebral representation of prosody

Progress in understanding brain/behavior relationships in adult-acquired dysprosody has led to models of cortical hemispheric representation of prosodic processing based on functional (linguistic vs affective) or physical (timing vs pitch) parameters. These explanatory perspectives have not been reconciled, and also a number of neurobehavior syndromes that include dysprosody among their neurological signs have not yet been integrated. In addition to expanding the functional perspective on prosody, some of these syndromes have implicated a significant role of subcortical nuclei in prosodic competence. In this article, two patients with acquired dysprosodic speech following damage to basal ganglia nuclei were evaluated using behavioral, acoustic, cognitive, and radiographic approaches. Selective quantitative measures were performed on each individual’s performance to provide detailed verification and clarification of clinical observations, and to test hypotheses regarding prosodic function. These studies, combined with a review of related clinical research findings, exemplify the value of a broader perspective on the neurobehavioral dysfunction underlying acquired adult dysprosodic speech, and lead to a new, proposed conceptual framework for the cerebral representation of prosody.

Brain Structures in Verbal Communication: A Focus on Prosody

Human communication is made up of three domains: speech, language, and pragmatics, which can be fully specified as a set of rules, units, and practices. Prosodic function spans these domains. Neurolinguistic studies utilizing an array of disparate techniques reveal that many parts of the brain are required for normal communicative function. Speech and language are largely lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere, while pragmatic competence appears to require an intact right hemisphere. Familiarity agnosias have been associated with right hemisphere dysfunction, leading to an explanation for preserved familiar proper noun recognition in severe aphasia. This model pertains to the adult brain; due to the poorly understood phenomenon of cerebral plasticity, laterality of function in children is established weakly and slowly. The basal ganglia may subserve well-known phrasal structures such as that seen in “automatic speech,” and some kinds of prosodic competence, both in production and perception. A thorough model of language and the brain takes into account two horizontal and one vertical dimension: the left-right dimension of hemispheric model differences; the anterior-posterior dimension reflecting sensory and motor processes; and the vertical interaction of cortical and subcortical processes. All of these participate crucially in the different domains of communication.