Word Rhythm Research Articles

Studi Kasus Profil Diagnostik Terapi Wicara Pada Klien Gagap Usia 27 Tahun

One of the disruptions in fluency is the lack of smoothness in speech that does not correspond to the speaker's age, and this lack of smoothness affects the rhythm and average number of words produced when speaking. This research aims to identify disruptions in fluency rhythm experienced by a 27-year-old client with stuttering. The research method employed is a case study (qualitative descriptive). The research implementation in this case begins with observation, client interviews, and testing, including reading, storytelling, and two-way communication tests. The results of this study conclude that the client's diagnosis is beginning stuttering accompanied by secondary stuttering behaviors such as eye movements, movements downward, hand clenching, and toe tapping. The client also exhibits a feeling of fear and moderate to severe anxiety, with the ICD-10 code for stuttering being F98.5. Stuttering syndromes include core behaviors such as stoppages, repetitions, and prolongations. The total stuttering index for the client during reading is 8.9%, during storytelling is 15.06%, and during two-way communication is 10.28%. Based on the data assessment, the author suggests reducing stuttering by strengthening the client's modalities, such as fostering a strong desire to learn, parental support for the client's recovery, and motivation from the client to reduce stuttering.

Passing Early Literacy Skills on to Others

While working for the Redwood City (CA) Public Library in the 1980s, I became a new mother. I sang songs, chanted Mother Goose rhymes, and recited short poems to my daughter while changing her diaper, nursing and burping her, and waiting in line at the store, knowing these were keys to enjoying the rhythm and rhyme of words, to build vocabulary, and to begin her love of reading.

The Daily Rhythmic Changes of Undergraduate Students' Emotions: An Analysis Based on Tencent Tweets.

Emotional stability is of great importance for undergraduates and has significant predictive power for mental health. Emotions are associated with individuals’ daily lives and routines. Undergraduates commonly post their opinions and feelings on social networks, providing a huge amount of data for studying their emotional states and rhythms. Based on the construction of the emotion dictionary of undergraduates’ Tencent tweets (TTs)—a social network for users to share their life situations and express emotions and feelings to friends—we used big data text analysis technology to analyze the emotion words in 45,996 Tencent tweets published by 894 undergraduates. Then, we used hierarchical linear modeling to further analyze the daily rhythms of undergraduate students’ emotions and how demographic variables are associated with the daily rhythmic changes. The results were as follows: (1) Undergraduates tweeted about more positive emotions than negative emotions (love was most common and fear was the least common); (2) The emotions in undergraduates’ tweets changed considerably from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m., but were fairly stable during the day; (3) There was a rising trend in the frequency of using emotion words in Tencent tweets during the day as each hour progressed, and there was a higher increase in positive emotion than negative emotion; and (4) The word frequencies and daily rhythms of emotions varied depending on demographic variables. Gender was correlated with the frequencies of gratitude and the daily rhythms of anger. As the grade increased, the frequency of emotion words in most subcategories in TTs decreased and the fluctuation in daily rhythms became smaller. There was no significant difference in the frequency and daily rhythm of emotion words used in TTs based on having had a left-behind experience. The results of the present study provided emotion expression in social networks in Chinese collectivist culture. This study added new evidence to support the notion that positive and negative emotions are independent dimensions.

The rhythms of rhythm

The low frequency (LF) spectral analysis or ‘rhythm spectrum’ approach to the quantitative analysis and comparison of speech rhythms is extended beyond syllable or word rhythms to ‘rhetorical rhythms’ in read-aloud narratives, in a selection of exploratory scenarios, with the aim of developing a unified theory of speech rhythms. Current methodologies in the field are first discussed, then the choice of data is motivated and themodulation-theoreticrhythm spectrum and rhythm spectrogram approach is applied to the amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM) of speech. New concepts ofrhythm formant,rhythm spectrogramandrhythm formant trajectoryare introduced in theRhythm Formant Theory(RFT) framework with its associated methodologyRhythm Formant Analysis(RFA) in order to capture second order regularities in the temporal variation of rhythms. The interaction of AM and FM rhythm factors is explored, contrasting English with Mandarin Chinese. The LF rhythm spectrogram is introduced in order to recover temporal information about long-term rhythms, and to investigate the configurative function of rhythm. The trajectory of highest magnitude frequencies through the component spectra of the LF spectrogram is extracted and applied in classifying readings in different languages and individual speaking styles using distance-based hierarchical clustering, and the existence of long-term second order ‘rhythms of rhythm’ in long narratives is shown. In the conclusion, pointers are given to the extension of this exploratory RFT rhythm approach for future quantitative confirmatory investigations.

Focus IBBY

Focus IBBY Liz Page (bio) International Children's Book Day around the World in 2021 International Children's Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated by IBBY members on or around the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen: April 2. Each year a different national section of IBBY has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of ICBD. It decides upon a theme and invites a prominent author from the host country to write a message to the children of the world and a well-known illustrator to design a poster. The 2021 poster and message were sponsored by USBBY; Margarita Engle wrote the delightful poem "The Music of Words," which was accompanied by the stunning artwork of Hans Christian Andersen Award winner (2014) Roger Mello. These materials are used in different ways to promote books and reading. Many IBBY sections promote ICBD through the media and organize activities in schools and public libraries. Often ICBD is linked to celebrations around children's books and other special events that may include encounters with authors and illustrators, writing competitions, or announcements of book awards. Below is a brief glimpse of some of the activities organized by IBBY members to celebrate ICBD 2021. A retrospective of more events celebrating 2021 International Children's Book Day can be seen on the IBBY blog: www.ibby.org/ibby-blog. In Iceland, a new short story by a popular children's book author was broadcast on Iceland's national public service broadcaster, Channel 1. The author read her story herself, and then gave a short interview on the radio. The short story was written for all students in primary school, from six- to sixteen-year-olds. IBBY Iceland has celebrated International Children's Book Day in this way for many years, choosing a new author and a new short story every year. The goal is that everyone in Iceland has a joint listening experience on this special day. People who read or listen to the same story have something in common with each other, which will foster tolerance. By allowing all primary school students in the country to listen to the story at the same time, forty thousand students enter the same world at the same time! After listening to the story, children are often given a fun assignment in connection with the story. IBBY Iceland provides the text of the short story online; these can be viewed on the IBBY Iceland Facebook page. In 2020, the short stories from the last ten years were published in a book. Learn more at www.facebook.com/IBBY.is/posts/3033571243340704. IBBY Nepal chose to distribute children's books to students and school libraries. Members of the section held sessions with teachers about the importance and utilization of children's literature in the classroom. Books were contributed by Room to Read (Nepal Unite). The section also celebrated International Storytelling Day on March 20, with support from the Storytellers' Society and Room to Read, by running a digital discussion [End Page 91] about the importance of storytelling for children's development and imagination. IBBY Dominican Republic supported the production of three books in Spanish and publishing a presentation of them on YouTube. Click for larger view View full resolution IBBY Argentina, working with Desde los Libros, gave a special workshop about ways of matching literature contents and readers through technology. The two-day workshop shared ways of learning through digital content on the media. The workshop addressed mediators, librarians, teachers, and promoters who wish to share their love for books in this "distant world." The Slovenian section of IBBY prepared a reading promotion event on their website: www.ibby.si/index.php/icbd/2021. IBBY Slovenia shared a video made for the occasion with a group of children and their teacher on the theme of Hans Christian Andersen. IBBY Malaysia organized various activities, which included a talk on the "Rhythm of Words" that was a joint activity with IBBY Malaysia and the Department of Early Childhood Studies, Faculty of Education, and Social Sciences University Selangor (UNISEL). A reading and storytelling session was held at the Genius Aulad Preschool in Nilai by Teacher Sha, as well as a storytelling session at Gallery...

ҚАЗАҚ МЕКТЕПТЕРІНДЕ АҒЫЛШЫН ТІЛІН ОҚЫТУДЫҢ ПСИХОЛИНГВИСТИКАЛЫҚ СИПАТЫ

The article examines the psycholinguistic nature of teaching English in Kazakh schools. With the help of the psycholinguistic direction, it is possible to determine how a person perceives a certain concept, how he uses information in his mind to express this concept. Psycholinguistic characteristics of a student are also very important when teaching English and it is necessary totake into account the mental level of the child in the culture of speech, general communication, his mental abilities, and behavior. Speaking about the fact that the use of vocabulary games in the development of the language of students is very effective,it is clear that today life itself sets high standards of professionalism, knowledge, intelligence and cognition.To increase the interest of students, the teacher must be able to clearly show the rhythm of the participant's own words and correctly formulate the task

Cortical encoding of acoustic and linguistic rhythms in spoken narratives.

Speech contains rich acoustic and linguistic information. Using highly controlled speech materials, previous studies have demonstrated that cortical activity is synchronous to the rhythms of perceived linguistic units, for example, words and phrases, on top of basic acoustic features, for example, the speech envelope. When listening to natural speech, it remains unclear, however, how cortical activity jointly encodes acoustic and linguistic information. Here we investigate the neural encoding of words using electroencephalography and observe neural activity synchronous to multi-syllabic words when participants naturally listen to narratives. An amplitude modulation (AM) cue for word rhythm enhances the word-level response, but the effect is only observed during passive listening. Furthermore, words and the AM cue are encoded by spatially separable neural responses that are differentially modulated by attention. These results suggest that bottom-up acoustic cues and top-down linguistic knowledge separately contribute to cortical encoding of linguistic units in spoken narratives.

Претворение особенностей церковного чтения и пения русской православной традиции в духовных сочинениях Сергея Рахманинова

The sacred works of Sergei Rachmaninoff have long been acknowledged as presenting one of the pinnacles of the “new direction” of Russian sacred music of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Rachmaninoff was among the composers who have most profoundly and brilliantly realized in their musical oeuvres the very spirit of church service singing. At the same time, in the “Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom” and the “All-Night Vigil” by Rachmaninoff reflection is also found of separate elements of the traditions of church reading, as well as certain regularities common both for church singing and reading, which up to the present day has not formed a subject of scholarly research. At the same time, the melodicism of the poglastisas [the intoning] of chant-like singing possesses not only a certain pitch set and laws of rhythmic intonations common to singing, but also a lucid modal nature, similar to the church mode of the Znamenny chant. The article demonstrates elements and techniques in Rachmaninoff’s “Liturgy” and “All-Night Vigil” common to both church singing and reading. The diatonicity, the preservation of the most delicate differentiation between the words, the conformity between the liturgical and the melodic elements, the predominance of the text over the music and, correspondingly, the subservience of the musical rhythm to the rhythm of words, the absence of significant extension of the syllables, the unhurried quality of the motion of musical time, the usage of natural vocal registers (without tension of tessitura), all of which are characteristic to these examples, are revealed. Unified means of emphasis of the key semantic units through the rising of the tessitura and the enhancement of the dynamics are highlighted through the intermittence and prolongation of the emphasized word, as well as through syllabic chant. Keywords: Sergei Rachmaninoff, sacred music, church reading, Liturgy.

Augev Method and an Innovative Use of Vocal Spectroscopy in Evaluating and Monitoring the Rehabilitation Path of Subjects Showing Severe Communication Pathologies

A strongly connotative element of developmental disorders (DS) is the total or partial impairment of verbal communication and, more generally, of social interaction. The method of Vocal-verb self-management (Augev) is a systemic organicistic method able to intervene in problems regarding verbal, spoken and written language development successfully. This study intends to demonstrate that it is possible to objectify these progresses through a spectrographic examination of vocal signals, which detects voice phonetic-acoustic parameters. This survey allows an objective evaluation of how effective an educational-rehabilitation intervention is. This study was performed on a population of 40 subjects (34 males and 6 females) diagnosed with developmental disorders (DS), specifically with a diagnosis of the autism spectrum disorders according to the DSM-5. The 40 subjects were treated in “la Comunicazione” centers, whose headquarters are near Bari, Brindisi and Rome. The results demonstrate a statistical significance in a correlation among the observed variables: supervisory status, attention, general dynamic coordination, understanding and execution of orders, performing simple unshielded rhythmic beats, word rhythm, oral praxies, phono-articulatory praxies, pronunciation of vowels, execution of graphemes, visual perception, acoustic perception, proprioceptive sensitivity, selective attention, short-term memory, segmental coordination, performance of simple rhythmic beatings, word rhythm, voice setting, intonation of sounds within a fifth, vowel pronunciation, consonant pronunciation, graphematic decoding, syllabic decoding, pronunciation of caudate syllables, coding of final syllable consonant, lexical decoding, phoneme-grapheme conversion, homographic grapheme decoding, homogeneous grapheme decoding, graphic stroke.

Beyond prosody: Foreign accent syndrome in a Spanish-speaking patient. Case report

Introduction: Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare speech disorder. It is becoming increasingly common to find reports of cases about alterations different from the suprasegmental aspects of speech, although these reports are not frequent in Spanish-speaking patients.Case presentation: 48-year-old female patient from Colombia diagnosed with FAS, segmental and suprasegmental speech alterations, and changes in cognitive domains (executive functions and language). The woman also presented with motor and affective changes. Brain imaging studies ruled out structural involvement and follow-up at one year did not show significant changes in speech.Discussion: This case presents the neurological, neuropsychological and speech features of a Spanish-speaking patient with FAS. Greater alteration in vowels than in consonants, alteration in pronunciation time, variation in rhythm and intonation of words and phrases, decrease of time between syllables, and insertion of vowels are common elements between this patient and other cases of FAS in non-Spanish speaking subjects.Conclusions: FAS is essentially a speech alteration; however, it can be accompanied by other physical and psychological signs. This case report allows recognizing the essential components for the definition, diagnosis and intervention of this syndrome.

CUED SPEECH AS A TOOL TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH PHONETICS ACQUISITION BY THE CHINESE STUDENTS OF PHILOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT

The paper argues the possibility of using a special visual mode of communication to improve English phonemic awareness by Chinese students. The analysis of existing techniques to teach word rhythm considering the differences in Chinese and English pronunciation has been made. Keywords: CUED speech, phonemic awareness, handshape, visual, phoneme.

The Cortical Maps of Hierarchical Linguistic Structures during Speech Perception.

The hierarchical nature of language requires human brain to internally parse connected-speech and incrementally construct abstract linguistic structures. Recent research revealed multiple neural processing timescales underlying grammar-based configuration of linguistic hierarchies. However, little is known about where in the whole cerebral cortex such temporally scaled neural processes occur. This study used novel magnetoencephalography source imaging techniques combined with a unique language stimulation paradigm to segregate cortical maps synchronized to 3 levels of linguistic units (i.e., words, phrases, and sentences). Notably, distinct ensembles of cortical loci were identified to feature structures at different levels. The superior temporal gyrus was found to be involved in processing all 3 linguistic levels while distinct ensembles of other brain regions were recruited to encode each linguistic level. Neural activities in the right motor cortex only followed the rhythm of monosyllabic words which have clear acoustic boundaries, whereas the left anterior temporal lobe and the left inferior frontal gyrus were selectively recruited in processing phrases or sentences. Our results ground a multi-timescale hierarchical neural processing of speech in neuroanatomical reality with specific sets of cortices responsible for different levels of linguistic units.

Neurophysiological and Images Studies in a Case of Foreign Accent Syndrome Secondary to Multiple Sclerosis

Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is rare speech disorder that affects about 80 persons in all the world, it´s a rare speech disorder characterized by segmental (abnormality in time of pronunciation of vocal and consonant) and prosodical deficits (abnormality in rhythm and intonation of words and phrases) without abnormal grammatical abnormalities, the patient´s speech resembles a nonnative accent. The most of cases present like an acquired abnormality of the speech due to a damage of the central nervous system. It could be secondary to neurologic or psychogenic disturbances. We present a case of FAS. It was a 65 years old woman with diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. Neurophysiological and Image tests were done to her. Visual Evoked Potential showed abnormality of nerve conduction on visual system due to demyelinating, Somatosensory Evoked Potential showed abnormality of nerve conduction on somatosensory way at left parietal area, probably due to demyelinating. EEG revealed paroxysmal activity on bilateral Fronto-Centro-Temporal regions, a peak of energy on theta band in all of derivation, predominantly in lower Frontal and Temporal regions and increase of absolute and relative power as well as mean frequency of theta band on lower Frontal and Temporal regions. 3T MRI showed hyperintense yuxtaxial image in cortical regions, hypointense images in brain stem, demyelinating plaques on left Frontal, Parietal and Temporal subcortical areas and in periventricular regions. We conclude that FAS is a rare disorder, it could be associated to Multiple Sclerosis.

The Types of Singing Words in Gutgeori Rhythms and their Educational Applications

말붙임새는 노랫말의 리듬을 뜻한다. 말붙임새의 이해를 통해서 민요 장단에 내재된 리듬과 나아가서는 악곡을 이루고 있는 선율이나 형식의 측면까지도 확장하여 이해를 도울 수 있다. 실제 학교 교육 활동에서는 말붙임새의 가사를 살펴보거나 바꾸어보기, 말놀이하기, 말장단 만들기 등의 다양한 방법이 시도되고 있다. 본고에서는 먼저 기악곡과 민요곡의 굿거리장단 리듬꼴을 유형별로 분류하고 여기에서 추출된 유형들이 어떤 방식으로 통속 민요곡에 적용되고 있는지 분석하여 학교 음악 수업 현장에서 말붙임새 학습의 올바른 방향성을 살펴 어떻게 지도되어야 할 것인지 교육적 활용 방안을 제시하는데 목적을 두었다. 굿거리장단으로 된 통속민요 12곡을 분석한 결과 굿거리장단으로 된 민요곡의 리듬꼴은 3+3+3+3, 3+3+2+2+2, 2+2+2+3+3, 2+2+2+2+2+2로 총 4가지 형태의 주요 리듬꼴로 유형화 할 수 있었다. 또한 반 장단 단위인 ‘2+2+2’ 리듬꼴 안에서의 가사 수를 살펴보는 정간보 분석 과정을 통해서 말붙임새에서 파생되는 장단의 리듬꼴을 결정짓는 기초 근거를 찾고 나아가 단위 악곡의 정체성을 밝히고자 하였다. 반 장단 단위의 결합으로 가사의 의미가 체계적으로 형성되고 이에 따라 가사의 강세 변화로 연결되며 그 결과 장단의 리듬꼴이 변하고 굿거리장단 전체의 음악적 강세가 변화되는 것을 확인할 수 있었다. 이에 본 연구자는 분석 결과를 바탕으로 굿거리장단 민요곡 말붙임새의 교육적 활용 방안을 제안하였다.Word-attachment means rhythm in lyrics. Through understanding word-attachment, it is possible to help understand rhythms which are inherent in folksongs jangdan and furthermore, and better understand melodies for music and the aspects of format. In actual school educational activities, various methods are tried such as examining and changing the lyrics of word-attachment, and playing with words and making word rhythms. This article categorizes various types of gutgurijangdan rhythms of instrumental music and folksongs; analyzes how extracted types are applied in conventional folksongs; and examines the right direction for teaching word-attachment in school music class in order to present educational application measures. The analysis of 12 conventional folksongs made of gutgurijangdan provided a result that the rhythm types of folksongs made of gutgurijangdan are 4 types in total, namely, 3+3+3+3, 3+3+2+2+2, 2+2+2+3+3, 2+2+2+2+2+2. In addition, the analysis of Jeongganbo which measures the number of lyrics in ‘2+2+2’(DulDulDul rhythmggol ), a half unit of jangdan provided with basic foundation that determines the rhythm type of jangdan derived from word-attachment that will help identify unit songs. It is confirmed that through the combination of half rhythm units(DulDulDul rhythmggol ), the meaning of lyrics is formed systematically, and this is connected to the stress change in the lyric. As a result, rhythm types of jangdan changes and the overall musical stress of gutgurijangdan alters. For this, the researcher proposes educational application measures of folksongs word-attachment of gutgurijangdan based on the result of analysis.

Attention Is Required for Knowledge-Based Sequential Grouping: Insights from the Integration of Syllables into Words.

How the brain groups sequential sensory events into chunks is a fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience. This study investigates whether top-down attention or specific tasks are required for the brain to apply lexical knowledge to group syllables into words. Neural responses tracking the syllabic and word rhythms of a rhythmic speech sequence were concurrently monitored using electroencephalography (EEG). The participants performed different tasks, attending to either the rhythmic speech sequence or a distractor, which was another speech stream or a nonlinguistic auditory/visual stimulus. Attention to speech, but not a lexical-meaning-related task, was required for reliable neural tracking of words, even when the distractor was a nonlinguistic stimulus presented cross-modally. Neural tracking of syllables, however, was reliably observed in all tested conditions. These results strongly suggest that neural encoding of individual auditory events (i.e., syllables) is automatic, while knowledge-based construction of temporal chunks (i.e., words) crucially relies on top-down attention.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Why we cannot understand speech when not paying attention is an old question in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Speech processing is a complex process that involves multiple stages, e.g., hearing and analyzing the speech sound, recognizing words, and combining words into phrases and sentences. The current study investigates which speech-processing stage is blocked when we do not listen carefully. We show that the brain can reliably encode syllables, basic units of speech sounds, even when we do not pay attention. Nevertheless, when distracted, the brain cannot group syllables into multisyllabic words, which are basic units for speech meaning. Therefore, the process of converting speech sound into meaning crucially relies on attention.

The Recognizability and Localizability of Auditory Alarms: Setting Global Medical Device Standards.

Objective Four sets of eight audible alarms matching the functions specified in IEC 60601-1-8 were designed using known principles from auditory cognition with the intention that they would be more recognizable and localizable than those currently specified in the standard. Background The audible alarms associated with IEC 60601-1-8, a global medical device standard, are known to be difficult to learn and retain, and there have been many calls to update them. There are known principles of design and cognition that might form the basis of more readily recognizable alarms. There is also scope for improvement in the localizability of the existing alarms. Method Four alternative sets of alarms matched to the functions specified in IEC 60601-1-8 were tested for recognizability and localizability and compared with the alarms currently specified in the standard. Results With a single exception, all prototype sets of alarms outperformed the current IEC set on both recognizability and localizability. Within the prototype sets, auditory icons were the most easily recognized, but the other sets, using word rhythms and simple acoustic metaphors, were also more easily recognized than the current alarms. With the exception of one set, all prototype sets were also easier to localize. Conclusion Known auditory cognition and perception principles were successfully applied to an existing audible alarm problem. Application This work constitutes the first (benchmarking) phase of replacing the alarms currently specified in the standard. The design principles used for each set demonstrate the relative ease with which different alarm types can be recognized and localized.

The Intelligibility of the Vietnamese Accented English

This study was purposely conducted to determine what linguistic features affect the intelligibility of the Vietnamese speakers. To do this, speech samples of exemplars of Vietnamese English were audio-taped and then listened to by representatives of the Kachruvian circles, who wrote down what they heard. The findings show that Vietnamese speakers have some difficulties producing English words properly, especially with final sounds, word-final consonant clusters, and words that have more than three syllables. The exemplars also find it difficult to deal with the stress time rhythm of English words with more than two syllables. The findings also imply that intelligibility is not much of a problem for Vietnamese exemplars, results of intelligibility scores of American and Filipino listeners show that less exposure of other speakers to another language does not follow that the latter would be completely unintelligible to the former. In addition, similarity in the general features of language between speakers of different nationalities does not guarantee mutual intelligibility between these people. From the findings, the paper discusses their implications for English language teaching in Vietnam.

L’oreille d’or par Élisabeth Barillé

THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 90, No. 3, March 2017 Printed in U.S.A. Creative Works edited by Jean-François Duclos 197 Barillé, Élisabeth. L’oreille d’or. Paris: Grasset, 2016. ISBN 978-2-246-85575-0. Pp. 126. 14 a. The author of several novels, narratives, and biographies, journalist Barillé recounts her partial deafness in this memoir drawing on her childhood and adult memories associated with hearing loss. Her poignant experiences alternate with more factual passages about the positive consequences of deafness for creative individuals, with whom she strongly identifies. For Barillé, partial deafness occurred at age six, after she took a medication prescribed to treat a respiratory virus; subsequently, the medication would be withdrawn as a treatment option for children. Marked physically and psychologically by her deafness, Barillé obeyed her parents’ orders to reveal nothing about her condition. Instead, she modified her behavior at school and when interacting with others by positioning herself so that her hearing, right ear was between her and her interlocutor.At the same time, however, Barillé’s lack of equilibrium and resulting clumsiness were misunderstood. Accused of imitating her arthritic grandfather’s offbalance gait, she sought refuge in solitary places and thought of herself as follows:“Je suis l’originale, la tarée” (33). Such statements reveal the author’s shame concerning her hearing loss. Nevertheless, she also compares the secrecy about her condition to that of Beethoven, whose undisclosed deafness was mistaken for creative absentmindedness . If her handicap exposes Barillé to misjudgment, disbelief, and mockery from other people, it also offers her the advantages of not hearing all sounds and of becoming completely absorbed in solitary activities requiring fine concentration. For example, she excels at catching and classifying butterflies from the French countryside. She also succeeds as a journalist responsible for conducting interviews and then transcribing them. Barillé relates her affinity for working alone to Thomas Edison, whose nearly complete deafness plunged him into the creative world of inventions. Besides Edison, the author expounds on composer Glenn Gould’s use of dissonance in music in order to demonstrate, once again, the extent to which a handicap can be a blessing. Discordant sounds were some of the few that he could still appreciate as his hearing declined. Similarly, Barillé mentions her own obsession with the rhythm of words,as she puts it:“J’entends des deux oreilles quand j’écris,”her“oreille manquante” serving to distinguish “les cailloux minuscules, les invisibles aspérités” in her French (42). Additionally, she elaborates on how her impaired left ear has saved her from overwhelming trauma, such as when she slept through most of a serious car accident involving her family, herself, and a friend. By sleeping on her good ear, she missed the squeals of bending metal that would have imprinted themselves traumatically on her memory. Insofar as L’oreille d’or emphasizes the positive aspects of Barillé’s deafness, it intimates her difficulties in relationships as well: her total, silent absorption in her work has been misinterpreted by her significant others as indifference. University of Texas, El Paso Jane E. Evans Bouyssi, Nicolas. Décembre. Paris: P.O.L, 2016. ISBN 978-2-8180-3901-4. Pp. 496. 22 a. Bouyssi’s latest novel continues the arc of his previous works, exploring questions of identity, social construct, corporate hegemony, and possible rebellion, while subtly alluding to places, entities, and characters found therein. Told in the first person, this novel takes place in a near future amid a dark atmosphere of uncertainty, dread, and longing. Large pockets of society regularly take drugs, including Cortothiamine—one of several allusions to Philip K. Dick, and a fine example of Bouyssi’s influences in this text. People rely on text messages and social media for nearly all interactions; exploiting big data, it is a hookup culture based on the GEHP (Grille des Expériences Humaines Primordiales) where individuals use a “mikado prodromique” to quickly determine if a mate is worth pursuing long-term. Like nearly all characters in the novel, the protagonist goes by his internet avatar’s name, Décembre, constructing an identity from truth and fiction, hiding behind a mask of anonymity ensconced in his...

Revisiting English word stress and rhythm in the post-nuclear domain

In English, grammatical category and word stress are often highly correlated: disyllabic nouns and verbs frequently occur with trochaic and iambic stress, respectively. Kelly and colleagues (1988,1992) suggest that this relationship was shaped by rhythm but may also be subverted by rhythm. We revisit a 1978 production study by Huss, who argued that the usual stress correlation is neutralized in postnuclear position and that acoustic differences are subject to effects of sentence rhythm. Twelve pairs of homophones were embedded in full sentences preceded by a possessive or plural noun with ultimate or penultimate stress: e.g. farms produce, farm’s produce, farmers produce, farmer’s produce. A postnuclear environment was elicited by prepending a contrastive sentence (e.g., Some say that only supermarket produce may vary in quality but also a farmer’s produce may vary in quality.) Results suggest, contra Huss, that prosodic differences between nouns and verbs persist in the postnuclear environment, despite effects of rhythm. In a mixed-effects logistic regression (N = 18), acoustic cues of syllable duration and maximum intensity were significant predictors of part of speech in nuclear and postnuclear position. We also discuss results of a perception experiment in progress using the production stimuli.

The Design and Testing of Novel IEC 60601-1-8 Audible Alarms

IEC 60601-1-8 is a medical alarms standard concerned with equipment safety. Part of its content specifies a set of audible alarms for eight clinical functions: cardiovascular, drug administration, oxygen, artificial perfusion, power down, temperature, ventilation and a general sound, along with a medium- and a low-priority alarm. It has long been acknowledged that the alarms specified are difficult to learn and retain , (Atyeo and Sanderson 2015; Edworthy, Page, et al, 2014; Lacherez, Seah & Sanderson, 2007; Sanderson, Wee & Lacherez 2006; Wee and Sanderson 2008). The alarm sounds require updating. The project reported here is concerned with developing candidate sets of alarms aimed at replacing those currently specified in IEC 60601-1-8. Four prototype sets of alarms were designed for the eight functions specified in the standard. These were as follows: Word rhythms: Each alarm contains a large number of harmonics and the eight alarms vary in pitch pattern, number of pulses and rhythm where those patterns mimic the words of the functions (so for example the ‘Cardiovascular’ alarm possesses 6 pulses and contains stresses on the first and fourth pulses). Auditory icons: These are real-world sounds that are used as metaphors for the functions. So for example the cardiovascular alarm is a heartbeat-like sound, the “Oxygenation” sound is an aerosol sound and so on. Auditory icons with beacon: Same as the Auditory icons but possesses a short beacon at the start of the sound in order to signify that it is an alarm sound. Resilient: These sounds are simple metaphors (such as a rising pitch for temperature) created at a sampling rate of 8kHz, intended for use in equipment with poor acoustic reproduction. A fifth set, IEC, is the set currently specified in the standard and was also tested for comparison. Participants were tested on a single set of alarms. Once they had been told the meanings of the eight alarms, they were presented with each of them ten times in a block-randomised fashion, and were required to name the alarm. Analysis of variance on the correct/incorrect scores considered the effect of sound type (IEC, word rhythm, auditory icons, auditory icons plus beacon, resilient), block (blocks 1 to 10) and sound (the individual alarm sounds) on the number of correct responses. Each of these factors showed significant effects, as well as some interactions. The largest effect by a considerable margin was attributable to sound type. Performance was significantly lower for the IEC condition than any of the other conditions; performance for the word rhythm condition was significantly higher than for the IEC condition but significantly lower than the other three conditions; performance in the resilient condition was significantly higher than for both the IEC and the word rhythm conditions but significantly lower than in the auditory icons conditions; and performance in the auditory icons and the auditory icons plus beacon conditions was significantly higher than in all other conditions, and similar to one another.