University Speech Research Articles

Students’ Perceptions and Preferred Educational Strategies for University Speech and Debate Courses

Students’ Perceptions and Preferred Educational Strategies for University Speech and Debate Courses

Free speech and democracy in Palestinian Universities: A call for parrhesiastic speech

This article examines the factors contributing to the suppression of free speech in Palestine, with a focus on the West Bank. We argue that anti-democratic politics and restricted public discourse in both public and academic spheres are mutually reinforced by the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority. Despite education’s potential as a tool of liberation, the ongoing cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as internal factional conflict, impede free speech within Palestine. Traditional teaching methods based on rote learning continue to dominate, posing a significant challenge to critical thinking and expression. Although education may serve as a pathway to freedom, constraints transform it into a tool for subjugation. Drawing on Foucault’s adaptation of the ancient Greek concept of parrhesia, we argue that Palestinian universities require more robust protections for free speech. At the same time, we argue that the struggle for free speech in these universities can be instructive to liberal democracies. Through analysis of the atrocities perpetrated against journalists and other dissenting voices, we shed light on the obstacles to democracy in Palestinian intellectual life.

Furthering racial liberalism in UK higher education: The populist construction of the 'free speech crisis'.

In this article we analyse the constructed 'free speech crisis' associated with higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK). We examine the media discourses from 2012 to 2022 which led to the establishment of a sense of crisis around speech in universities and, ultimately, to the Freedom of Speech Act in May 2023. We undertake a critical discourse analysis focused on the constructions of universities and university students in two major right-wing broadsheet newspapers, The Times and The Telegraph, and in the right-wing magazine The Spectator. We conceptualise the 'free speech crisis' as a discursive formation which is part of broader political efforts of conservative elites to maintain hegemony in Britain. Drawing on populism theory and race critical analyses, we argue that the 'free speech crisis' is an expression of racial liberalism and a placeholder for a deeper white anxiety over the social reproduction of elites in university spaces, and thus over (cultural) hegemony in the public sphere. We understand the desire to regulate 'free' speech in HE as an effort to prevent the emergence of an elite and (counter)hegemony different to the status quo. We make contributions to two emergent and interrelating bodies of literature: firstly, the study of populism in (post)Brexit Britain, and secondly, the study of culture wars, including iterations of the 'free speech crisis' and 'the war on woke'.

Values in British higher education: knowledge, freedom and wellbeing

British higher education is ranked among the best in the world, but some of its core values are under strain. Knowledge and critical thinking can be undermined by biased mind-sets, especially when engaging with the social media. Research demonstrates that false news goes viral much more quickly than true news. Political correctness and the woke movement can militate against freedom, especially in gender-related matters. Surveys show that many staff and students have a lower sense of wellbeing than the rest of the population. Conscious of these problems, the Government has responded with an Act to place extensive new obligations on certain types of online service providers, requiring them to protect their users by managing risks relating to illegal and harmful content. A separate Act has also been passed to protect freedom of speech in universities. The issue of staff and student unhappiness is much less amenable to legislation because it is so multi-faceted. However, it is a very important issue for a healthy, democratic society that fosters cooperation, trust and community. It needs to be addressed.

Developing a Dyslexia Diagnostic Team: A Feasibility Project

Purpose: Dyslexia, a neurobiological phonological processing deficit, can be identified early; however, there is a substantial variation between and within states regarding who makes this diagnosis and when. Dyslexia evaluations are often challenging to obtain and very expensive for families who need to seek them outside of the school setting. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of developing a free dyslexia diagnostic team within our university speech and hearing clinic. Method: We developed a team of academic and clinical faculty and students at the doctoral, master's, and undergraduate levels. We developed a 6-hr (1 day) testing battery and recruited families via social media. Children needed to be between the ages of 8 and 11 years and reported to have classroom difficulty related to word reading and/or spelling. Results: We were able to create a strong and successful team, testing battery, and recruitment plan. Master's students were interested in the opportunity and families drove between 246 and 453 miles to participate. We allocated enough time in our summer schedule for all parties. However, we have concerns about the sustainability of this program, especially during the academic year. Conclusions: Broadly, this dyslexia diagnostic team is a feasible endeavor. There was internal and external community interest. We identified small and solvable barriers related to debriefing and test interpretation. We also identified larger issues related to funding, faculty availability, and student support.

Students' Perspective on Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech in Albanian Universities

This article presents an analysis of the perspective of university students in Albania toward freedom of expression and hate speech within the academic environment. This study confidently investigates Albanian university students’ attitudes and perceptions towards freedom of expression, its significance in academic institutions, and its relationship with principles of equality and non-discrimination. Based on survey data collected from 622 participants, the study examines student’s attitudes toward the freedom of expression and hate speech. Study results strongly support previous research that highlights the significance of freedom of expression for young people in high educational institutions. The high level of participant agreement on the importance of freedom of expression in this study provides further evidence of the universal recognition of this fundamental right. The study contributes valuable insights to the discourse on freedom of expression and its implications for fostering inclusive and respectful academic environments in Albania. Received: 20 February 2024 / Accepted: 30 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024

Freedom of speech in universities: between competence and geopolitics

Academic freedoms, including freedom of speech, were one of the fundamental pillars of the university system. They allowed the European medieval society to consolidate and form nation-states. But in their competition, freedom of speech was seen by the authorities as an obstacle to achieving world leadership. With the end of the Cold War, the perception of freedom of speech changed, on the one hand enhancing the freedom of movement of students, but on the other hand limiting it to a utilitarian approach to learning.

Simon Fraser University Speech Error Database (SFUSED) Cantonese: Methods, design, and usage

The Simon Fraser University Speech Error Database (SFUSED) is a multi-purpose database of speech errors based in audio recordings. The motivation for SFUSED Cantonese, a component of this database, is to create a linguistically rich data set for exploring language production processes in Cantonese, an under-studied language. We describe in detail the methods used to collect, analyze, and explore the database, including details of team workflows, time budgets, data quality, and explicit linguistic and processing assumptions. In addition to showing how to use the database, this account supports future research with a template for investigating additional under-studied languages, and it gives fresh perspective on the benefits and drawbacks of collecting speech error data from spontaneous speech. All of the data and supporting materials are available as open access data sets.

Presupposition in the Discourse of Political Reconciliation The Case of Obama's Speech to the Islamic World from Cairo University

The current paper investigates the use of presupposition in the discourse of political reconciliation implied in Obama's Cairo University speech. Semantic presupposition triggers are identified in the speech as establishing the taken-for-granted human values shared by the speaker and his audience in Egypt and the Islamic world. Pragmatic presupposition is at play to call upon the common mental images between America and the Islamic world and hence setting a basis for reconciliation as something inevitable between the two conflicting sides (America and The Islamic World).

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT BARRACK OBAMA’S SPEECH IN AL AZHAR UNIVERSITY

The purpose of this research is to analyz what kinds of attitudes showed in President Barrack Obama's speech, how does President Barrack Obama express his attitudes, and how does President Barrack Obama amplify his attitude toward Islam in his Al-Azhar University speech. Based on the data analysis, this research concluded that president Barrack Obama showed the three kinds of attitude namely affect, judgment,and appreciation. The affect dominates the proportion of the attitudes employed in president Barrack Obama's speech 25 sentences it equal to 53%, followed by judgment in the second place'13 sentences it equal to 28%. Appreciation was the least resource of attitude used in the president Obama's speech 9 sentences it equal to 19%. The positive attitude consists of 36 sentences it equals to 77% than negative one consists of 11 sentences it equals to 23%, because he knew that America and Islam have been in tension. In amplifying his attitude the use of focus is more frequents than the force in which 33 sentences in focus and 14 sentences in force. As well as the amplification of President Barrack Obama's attitude tend to focus because America and Islam has been in tension therefore he focused on improving the relationship between America and Islam. As American president who spoke in front of Muslim majority, he was a marvelous leader who could analyze problems and find the solutions.

Transformer for authenticating the source microphone in digital audio forensics

In recent years, digital audio has played a significant role in providing information used as evidence in criminal investigations. The authenticity of an audio recording must be proven for it to be admitted into evidence in a legal proceeding. In this paper, we propose a robust system based on transformer deep learning architecture for identifying the source microphone with high accuracy, which is applicable in digital audio forensics. To evaluate the proposed model, we use the Audio Forensic Dataset for Digital Multimedia Forensics (AF-DB) and the King Saud University speech database (KSU-DB) datasets. Experiments show that the proposed model achieves state-of-the-art classification accuracy on the two databases. The model achieves an overall accuracy of 94.18% and 84.19% for Inter-model and Intra-model microphone classification, respectively, for the AF-DB and 99.38% for the KSU-DB speech dataset.

Patient and caregiver satisfaction regarding telepractice versus in-person services at a university speech, language, and hearing clinic

Purpose: The purpose of the pilot study is to explore patient and caregiver (i.e., spouse, parent, grandparent, child, and grandchild) satisfaction regarding telepractice versus in-person services provided at a university speech, language, and hearing clinic.Methods: Survey data were collected from 70 respondents (24 received in-person services only, 13 received telepractice only, and 33 received both in-person services and telepractice) during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.Results: Results indicated that patients and caregivers rated overall in-person services significantly higher than the overall telepractice services. Patients’ and caregivers’ perceived technology skills were not significantly related to their satisfaction of telepractice. However, graduate clinicians’ technology skills, professionalism, and the quality of materials used in sessions were significantly associated with patients’ and caregivers’ satisfaction of telepractice. Also, patients’ and caregivers’ interaction with graduate students and supervisors was significantly correlated to their satisfaction of telepractice.Conclusions: Areas of improvement for telepractice-based services were discussed. The significance of adopting telepractice clinical and technical skills in preservice speech-lan¬guage pathology pedagogy was also highlighted.

The Settler Coloniality of Free Speech

Abstract Public and scholarly debates surrounding free speech often assume free speech is a public good and/or should be approached as a problem of “drawing the line” between free and regulated or benign and harmful speech. In contrast, this article provides a genealogy of free speech in which liberal freedom of expression has, since its inception, been integral to white supremacist settler colonialism in the United Kingdom and its former settler colonies, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The article argues that, far from a noble struggle against regulation, liberal politics around free speech establish oppositions between white “civilized” speech and its Indigenized racially darkened “others” as well as controlling or silencing Indigenous, Black and/or otherwise racially othered speech across the Anglosphere. The article first traces free speech through two significant moments in its emergence: early European Enlightenment colonial expansion (embodied in John Locke's “toleration”) and 1800s British colonial industrialization (embodied in John Stuart Mill's “marketplace of ideas”). The article then examines how this genealogy informs the contemporary case study of contestation over free speech in universities, showing that engagements with free speech across the political spectrum extend its settler colonial rationality.

Grounds for Debate: The Challenges to Free Speech in Universities

There is currently much concern with questions of freedom of speech and expression, much of it focused on the appearance of ‘wokeness’ and its manifestations in corporate life, the media, and academia. Historically, the idea of free expression was seen as dangerous or a heresy. But this has changed over the last 250 years, as a combination of technological change and active campaigns for free expression established the principle of a right to free speech. This led to the emergence of an infrastructure or ecology of places and institutions that supported it, of which the university was one. An absolute and unlimited right to free speech and expression has never existed because that right is always qualified by other ones, including notably the very ones that also sustain free expression, such as private property, freedom of association, and freedom of contract. Historically, universities were not centres of free expression but were concerned with the articulation, exploration, and defence of orthodoxy. The current problems with free speech at universities are real but overstated (as this is actually a problem primarily found in elite institutions and only in the Anglosphere) and come primarily from the lack of intellectual diversity in the sector as a whole and between institutions rather than in any one institution. They reflect a wider problem in society – the decay of the ecology or infrastructure built up in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This decline was caused not so much by technology (which commonly gets the blame) as by the growth of both government and certain kinds of private funding, the corrupting effect of the predatory and dysfunctional US legal system, and the increasingly intense intra-elite status competition produced by the combination of meritocracy and elite overproduction. Direct measures by governments to impose on universities a duty to provide a platform for speakers are an unwarranted imposition on private bodies. This illustrates the problems with government funding and the lack of genuine university independence and variety within the sector.

Speech therapy model for patients with cleft palate in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: Lack of speech services

BackgroundA majority of children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) have persistent speech and language problems after repair. Speech services are critically needed for these children in some developing countries where there is a lack of or no speech services. This includes the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR) where accessibility to speech therapy is not an attainable medical specialty. ObjectiveTo establish and determine the effectiveness of speech therapy model in reduction of the number of articulation errors for children with CLP in LPDR where these services are lacking. MethodsSpeech therapy for children with CLP in LPDR by using the adapted Khon Kaen University Speech Therapy Model based on combining the principles of Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR), Primary Health Care (PHC) and institutional medical approaches was provided for children with CLP in Bokeo, LPDR. Twelve children with CLP (3.6–16 years) were recruited for this study. Demonstration and teaching services for both speech assistants (SAs), who were local health care providers, and caregivers were performed in 3-day intensive speech camps. Three 1-day follow-up speech camps and 3 site visits were conducted by Thai speech and language pathologists (TSLPs) and their teams. SAs provided speech correction at local health care units based on TSLPs’ individual monitoring and supervision. Caregivers practiced assigned exercises at home. Speech Therapy Model in LPDR was undertaken for 1 year. ResultsThe Speech Therapy Model in LPDR was one of the effective models and significantly reduced number of articulatory errors (mean difference = 6.42; 95% confidence interval = 3.01, 9.83).

Silencing and freedom of speech in UK higher education

Freedom of speech in universities is currently an issue of widespread concern and debate. Recent empirical findings in the UK shed some light on whether speech is unduly restricted in the university, but it suffers from two limitations. First, the results appear contradictory. Some studies show that the issue of free speech is overblown by media reportage, whilst others track serious concerns about free speech arising from certain university policies. Second, the findings exclude important issues concerning restrictions to speech on campus that fall outside the traditional debate around violations to free speech rights. This is particularly the case when certain voices are excluded from important policy conversations, and in issues around diversifying the curriculum. This article overcomes these two limitations by developing a novel conceptual framework within which to situate current debates concerning speech‐related matters in universities. It does so by developing a taxonomy around the concept of ‘silencing’. It then considers the current issue of speech matters in universities within this framework to determine whether, and to what extent, speech is indeed unduly restricted, and where this is a concern for free speech violations, and where it falls outside this issue.

Collecting Words: A Clinical Example of a Morphology-Focused Orthographic Intervention.

Purpose Morphological interventions promote gains in morphological knowledge and in other oral and written language skills (e.g., phonological awareness, vocabulary, reading, and spelling), yet we have a limited understanding of critical intervention features. In this clinical focus article, we describe a relatively novel approach to teaching morphology that considers its role as the key organizing principle of English orthography. We also present a clinical example of such an intervention delivered during a summer camp at a university speech and hearing clinic. Method Graduate speech-language pathology students provided a 6-week morphology-focused orthographic intervention to children in first through fourth grade (n = 10) who demonstrated word-level reading and spelling difficulties. The intervention focused children's attention on morphological families, teaching how morphology is interrelated with phonology and etymology in English orthography. Results Comparing pre- and posttest scores, children demonstrated improvement in reading and/or spelling abilities, with the largest gains observed in spelling affixes within polymorphemic words. Children and their caregivers reacted positively to the intervention. Therefore, data from the camp offer preliminary support for teaching morphology within the context of written words, and the intervention appears to be a feasible approach for simultaneously increasing morphological knowledge, reading, and spelling. Conclusion Children with word-level reading and spelling difficulties may benefit from a morphology-focused orthographic intervention, such as the one described here. Research on the approach is warranted, and clinicians are encouraged to explore its possible effectiveness in their practice. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12290687.

The Limits of Community: Deconstructing the White Framing of Racist Speech in Universities

This article identifies the dominant frame through which university administrators in the United States respond to racist incidents and analyzes that from using the lens of critical race theory (CRT). We argue that the stock response of college and university administrators, which calls for counterspeech as the only appropriate response to racist speech, fails to consider the harmful effects of racist speech on students, staff, and faculty of color. Furthermore, this abstract-liberalist, color-blind approach decontextualizes racist speech from the historical and contemporary reality of structural racism that informs the speech acts and symbols used in these displays. We further use the CRT approach by shifting the perspective from a unilateral focus on protecting the right to racist speech to explore what happens when analysts focus instead on protecting substantively equal access for community members of color. In so doing, we highlight the value of CRT for revealing how white racial framing obscures competing legal and policy norms.

Prevent Strategy’s Impact on Social Relations

The Prevent Strategy is often accused of being detrimental to social relations in the UK. Criticisms include the securitisation of engagement with Muslim communities, conflation of counter-terrorism and community cohesion, repression of public debate, and the undermining of free speech in schools and universities. This article does not suggest that all criticisms are necessarily invalid or that Prevent, like most strategies addressing complex social issues, is without flaws. However, through analysis of original primary data collected from five years of Prevent delivery in two West London Boroughs, the authors find that many criticisms of Prevent neglect to address the diversity and nuance of impact across the UK as well as the many positive impacts Prevent has on social relations. Criticisms seem partly a consequence of the scarcity of data available to researchers. To address this, the article presents new data to demonstrate a wider range of social impacts, with reference to specific experiences in two Local Authorities.

Experiences of people with severe aphasia and spouses attending an Interdisciplinary Community Aphasia Group

Background: Community aphasia groups are recognized as an area of need and value for people with chronic aphasia and their significant others. However, our understanding of attendees’ experiences is limited by the small amount of qualitative research available. The present study aimed to describe participant experiences of an Interdisciplinary Community Aphasia Group, as part of a better understanding of its underlying processes and value.Methods: Four people with chronic, severe aphasia and their spouses attended an Interdisciplinary Community Aphasia Group held at a university speech clinic for 2 h once weekly over 12 weeks. The group was co-facilitated by a speech-language pathologist and a social worker, with the support of two aides (one a person with aphasia, and the other a member of the general community). The group addressed the following areas: communication therapy, conversation, participation in meaningful and accessible activities, psychological and social support, and aphasia information and education. Following the program, the people with aphasia (via multimodal communication) and spouses participated in separate semi-structured interviews with an independent interviewer. The interviews addressed members’ perceptions of the program (both in relation to themselves and their spouse) along with recommendations for improvement. The interviews were analyzed using Framework Analysis.Results: Members shared preferences for program activities and group format, with some experiences leading to suggestions for improvement. The group dynamics and environment were considered positive overall, and members highlighted a range of positive impacts for both themselves and their spouse. Together, these elements informed members’ evaluation that the model contained something for everyone, but may not be a “one-stop shop” given ongoing needs for therapy. An overarching theme for spouses addresses therapy and recovery in relation to the impact of peers, views and beliefs, and adjustment.Conclusions: The Interdisciplinary Community Aphasia Group model has overall acceptability for people with chronic, severe aphasia and their spouses, and can be adapted to ensure feasibility in clinical practice. Ongoing research is required to best tailor community groups for people with aphasia and significant others, and to reinforce the need for their proliferation.Implications for rehabilitationPeople with aphasia and their spouses can benefit from a wide range of programming, including participation in meaningful and accessible non-verbal activitiesAn interdisciplinary staff team can contribute positively to member experience and impacts, with peer staff offering valuable mentoring roles. Various aspects of member identity and life narrative impact on community aphasia group participation; understanding members’ needs in the context of previous experiences can improve tailoring of program content.