English Stop Research Articles

Visual gender biases in English stop voicing perception

Listeners leverage visual information, such as perceived speaker gender, during speech perception. While work has shown visual gender biases on fricative (Johnson & Strand, 1996) and vowel perception (Johnson et al., 1999), its effects on stop voicing perception are understudied. We present an identification task where visual gender primes (male/female portraits) were used to investigate perceived speaker gender effects on English stop voicing. Subjects (n = 22) identified ‘pa’/’ba’ syllables from an 11-step VOT continuum (0–50 ms) in 5 pitch levels (high: 250 Hz, 230 Hz, mid: 170 Hz, and low: 130 Hz, 110 Hz). High and low pitch tokens were always preceded by a female and male portrait, respectively. Mid pitch tokens were preceded by female or male images in separate blocks. Given that f0 is higher following voiceless obstruents (Lehiste & Peterson 1961; Mohr 1971), if listeners utilize visual gender cues, acoustically ambiguous tokens paired with a male portrait should elicit more voiceless "pa" responses than those paired with a female portrait. Preliminary results pattern in the expected direction; mid tokens are perceived as "pa" more when paired with a male (15–25 ms = 79% "pa" response) than a female face (73% "pa" response); however, this effect was not statistically significant.

English listeners categorize murmured stops based on aspiration, not prevoicing

Previous perceptual studies of English stop voicing focus on Voice-Onset Time (VOT). Aspiration is generally subsumed into VOT, yet [1] complicates this, evincing a trading relation between intensity of aspiration noise and VOT. Our study is the first to examine the role of VOT and aspiration in English listeners’ perception of non-native plain and murmured stops. We recorded Marathi talkers producing /CVsV/ nonce words beginning with /t/, /tʰ/, /d/, /dʰ/, e.g. /dʰaːsaː/, or their velar counterparts. The following acoustic measures were taken for each token: — Duration of prevoicing — After Closure Time (ACT) [2], i.e., the interval between release and periodicity — Pre-Vocalic Interval (PVI) [3], which includes ACT and the murmured portion of the vowel — Intensity of aspiration noise Canadian English listeners rated the stops on a 6-point scale from voiced to voiceless. Only results for murmured stops are discussed here. Despite variability of prevoicing duration in these tokens (range = 200ms, sd = 43), the factor did not correlate significantly with a token’s average rating (p>0.60). However, ACT (r=.53, p<0.001), PVI (r=0.39, p<0.001), and the mean intensity of aspiration noise (r = 0.58, p<0.02) did. Thus, aspiration, not prevoicing, best accounts for perceptual differences between murmured stops. [1] Repp, “Relative amplitude of aspiration noise…,” Lang. Speech 22, 1979; [2] Mikuteit & Reetz, “Caught in the ACT…,” Lang. Speech 50, 2007; [3] Berkson, “Capturing breathy voice…,” Kans. Work. Pap. Ling. 33, 2012.

Developing E-cigarette friendly smoking cessation services in England: staff perspectives

BackgroundPublic health leadership in England has taken a distinctive international stance by identifying the potential public health benefit of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. This includes the development of a ground-breaking set of national guidelines for developing e-cigarette friendly stop smoking services. However, little is known about the views of staff engaged within these services and whether or how such services are becoming e-cigarette friendly. This study aimed to investigate the uptake and usage of e-cigarette guidance, from the perspective of those enacting tobacco cessation interventions ‘on the ground’.MethodsQualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 cessation service staff, including advisors (n = 15), managers (n = 5) and commissioners (n = 5) from eight different services in the South-West of England, UK. A thematic analysis of the transcripts was conducted using NVivo software.ResultsAlthough some stop smoking services labelled themselves e-cigarette friendly, there was no consensus over what this should entail. For some, this meant active engagement, such as working with local vape shops, and in the case of one service, offering e-cigarettes through a voucher scheme to disadvantaged groups. For others, an e-cigarette friendly service was conceptualized in a passive sense, as one which welcomed service users using e-cigarettes. Many services did not use the ‘e-cigarette friendly’ claim in their branding or promotional material. Several discursive themes underlay differing staff attitudes. Those more reluctant to engage framed this in terms of their ‘duty of care’, with concerns focusing on the addictiveness of nicotine, lack of medically licensed product and ongoing scientific controversy. Those motivated to engage drew on a discourse of social justice goals and ‘doing things differently’ in relation to lower socio-economic status smokers, those with mental health issues and other vulnerable groups. Strong public health leadership was also identified as a key factor in changing staff attitudes towards e-cigarettes.ConclusionsOn-the-ground enactment of e-cigarette friendly services is varied as well as reflective of the wider policy and regulatory environment. Although the context of English stop smoking services is one of austerity and change, there are opportunities for active engagement with e-cigarettes to achieve overall cessation goals. For this to occur, training, policy consistency and sharing best practice are needed.

English Stop Production before a Nasal in Korean L2 Learners

The present study examines the production forms of English stops before a nasal produced by Korean learners of English (L2). Korean L2 learners have to learn the phonetic and phonological properties of an English stop before a nasal as a stop is not allowed in this position in Korean. This study attempted first to investigate whether Korean L2 learners were able to establish an L2 phonological subsystem with distinct phonetic categories for English stops in this position, and then to uncover what acoustic values they exploited for these new categories depending on their L2 proficiency level. The results revealed that low-proficiency talkers showed considerable evidence of L1 interference; in some instances, they did not create a new category for a stop by substituting it with a nasal. In other instances, they inserted a vowel after it. They also realized voiceless stops with significantly longer voicing than those of native English talkers. In contrast, high-proficiency talkers realized voiced and voiceless stops with significantly longer stop closure than did native English talkers respectively. This paper showed that stop categories with different acoustic values were established by Korean learners of English compared to native English talkers and that the time of exposure to the L2 affected production forms as has been suggested in many previous studies.

Within-category variation in production of Hindi and English stop consonants

This paper addresses the broad question of how phonological structure affects phonetic production using within-category variation of multiple phonetic cues in Hindi and English stop consonants. The intuitive hypothesis, formalized in Dispersion Theory (Lindblom, 1986) is that languages that have more phonological contrasts along a single phonetic dimension should have relatively less within-category variation along that dimension. Hindi (four stop contrasts per place of articulation) speakers are therefore predicted to exhibit less within-category variation in production relative to English (two contrasts per place) speakers. This was observed in the results of Hauser (2016) who examined VOT variation of voiceless aspirated stops in these languages. The present study builds on those results and examines F0 as a second cue to the voicing contrast. The F0 results do not conform to the prediction that Hindi speakers should exhibit less variation. There was no difference in F0 variation between the Hindi and English speakers, yet there were significant differences in the amount of within-category F0 variation among the individual Hindi speakers (Levene’s Test p < 0.001). It is argued that this is because F0 acts as a secondary cue to the voicing contrast. Speakers can exhibit greater and individualized levels of variability in F0 without adding perceptual confusion because the primary cue (VOT) remains distinct.

Phonemic categorization of English stops in the VOT-F0 dimensions for Korean stop contrast

The current study investigates how Korean speakers articulate and perceive English stops using their native acoustic cues, VOT and F0. Given reports of tonogenesis in the Korean stop system, the role of F0 as a contrasting cue for lenis and aspirated stops has been enhanced. In this regard, the quantitative acoustic model reported that English voiced stops are significantly assimilated to lenis stops in the F0 dimension but not in the VOT dimension. The perceptual identification of English stops showed that VOT is a contrasting cue for [voice] in English stop contrasts. These findings indicate that English phonemic categorization is VOT-biased in perceptual space, alongside articulatory assimilation to the primary phonetic cue (F0) in the native language, suggesting a discrepancy in language competence between L2 production and perception. (Ewha Womans University)

Instrumental Analysis of the English Stops Produced by Arabic Speakers of English

This study reports the findings of a research that was conducted on ten (10) Arab students, who were enrolled in a master of English applied linguistics program at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The research aimed at instrumentally analyzing the English stops produced by Arab learners, in terms of voice onset time (VOT); identifying the effect of their mother tongue on producing the English stops; and the extent Arabic speakers of English differentiate in terms of pronunciation between minimal pairs. The findings of the study showed that some of the subjects’ VOT values were similar to native speakers of English. It was also found that the subjects could differentiate in terms of aspiration or voicing between /p/ and /b/, which refutes the assumption that Arab learners have a problem in producing the /p/ sound with appropriate aspiration. However, they did not show significant difference in pronunciation between the /t/ and /d/ or between the /k/ and /g/. Moreover, there is a kind of limited effect of the L1 on producing some stops (e.g. /t/ and /g/). However, for the /b/ sound, it cannot be inferred that there is interference from the mother tongue because its VOT value is almost the same in English and Arabic. This research suggests that teachers need to enhance Arab learners’ pronunciation of some minimal pairs such as /t/ and /d/ or /k/ and /g/.

A bear called Baddington? Variability and contrast enhancement in accented infant-directed speech

This work examines the realization of the English stop voicing contrast in read speech directed to infants (IDS) and adults (ADS), as well as in words in isolation, as produced by three groups of speakers: native speakers of Canadian English (where /b/ and /p/ differ in aspiration), native speakers of languages in which /b/ and /p/ differ in phonetic voicing (e.g., Spanish), and native speakers of languages which have a 4-way stop contrast /b, p, bʰ, pʰ/, where both aspiration and voicing are contrastive (e.g., Hindi). In words in isolation, speakers from both “accented” groups tended to produce English voiceless stops as unaspirated, and voiced stops as phonetically voiced. However, there was variability in accented speakers’ voiceless stops, as well as in native speakers’ use of phonetic voicing in voiced stops, and this variability appeared to be augmented in the read speech conditions (ADS and IDS). We test the hypotheses (1) that IDS results in phonologically-informed contrast enhancement, with accent-specific modifications expected for the three groups of speakers, and (2) that speakers aim for more precision in phonetic targets when talking to infants, resulting in less within-speaker variability in realization of the contrast in IDS as compared to ADS.

In Search of Cowboy B: Bilabial Implosives in American English

This article presents acoustic evidence for the existence of a bilabial implosive, [ƃ], in one variety of U.S. English. One articulatory observation is that vocal chord vibration of the English bilabial stop, /b/, can only be maintained for a maximum of about 82 ms. Increasing the vibration beyond this threshold is only possible by increasing the size of the vocal cavity, which in turn is often enabled by lowering the glottis, a gesture characteristic of implosive stops. The authors compare the voiced bilabial stops of five white males from the Western united States, three of whom impressionistically appear to have implosive stops and two who do not. For each stop, a normalized stop duration was calculated based on speech tempo, the actual stop duration, and the percentage of the stop that displayed vocal fold vibration. As far as normalized stop duration is concerned, there are no significant differences between the five speakers. However, the vocal fold vibration patterns for the two nonimplosive-sounding speakers and the three implosive-sounding speakers differ a great deal. In addition to evidence for biliabial implosives, there are large differences in the percentage of stop closure that displays vocal fold vibration. Both of these factors merit further study in terms of their social distribution in English, which is not known for implosion.

Structure in talker-specific phonetic realization: Covariation of stop consonant VOT in American English

Variation across talkers in the acoustic-phonetic realization of speech sounds is a pervasive property of spoken language. The present study provides evidence that variation across talkers in the realization of American English stop consonants is highly structured. Positive voice onset time (VOT) was examined for all six word-initial stop categories in isolated productions of CVC syllables and in a multi-talker corpus of connected read speech. The mean VOT for each stop differed considerably across talkers, replicating previous findings, but importantly there were strong and statistically significant linear relations among the means (e.g., the mean VOTs of [pʰ] and [kʰ] were highly correlated across talkers, r>0.80). The pattern of VOT covariation was not reducible to differences in speaking rate or other factors known to affect the realization of stop consonants. These findings support a uniformity constraint on the talker-specific realization of a phonetic property, such as glottal spreading, that is shared by multiple speech sounds. Because uniformity implies mutual predictability, the findings also shed light on listeners׳ ability to generalize knowledge of a novel talker from one stop consonant to another. More broadly, structured variation of the kind investigated here indicates a relatively low-dimensional encoding of talker-specific phonetic realization in both speech production and speech perception.

Assessing the fidelity of delivery of an intervention to increase attendance at the English Stop Smoking Services.

BackgroundImplementation fidelity refers to the extent to which a proposed intervention is enacted as designed and is necessary to determine how much the intervention in question is the primary mechanism in any changes observed. Start2quit was a randomised controlled trial that aimed to improve attendance at the English Stop Smoking Service (SSS). The complex intervention combining computer-tailored personal risk letters and no-commitment (“taster”) sessions aimed at encouraging attendance at the SSS doubled attendance at the SSS and significantly increased abstinence rates, although attendance and abstinence varied between participating SSSs. Assessment of the fidelity of the delivery of the taster sessions to the protocol was embedded into the trial and is the focus of this study.MethodsEighteen SSSs participated in the study. Taster sessions were delivered by SSS advisors in the area. Of the 131 sessions delivered, 93 (71 %) were recorded and 41 (31.3 %) were selected for transcription and analysis. The taster session protocol contained 73 specified behaviours, which were independently classified into component behaviour change techniques (BCTs) using an established taxonomy for smoking cessation. All transcripts were coded by two authors with 25 % additionally coded by a third. The fidelity of each taster session was expressed as the percentage of overall protocol-specified behaviours that were delivered. Adherence to each BCT was measured as the number of behaviours applied by the advisors within each BCT divided by the total number classified within each.ResultsAdherence of protocol-specified behaviours was relatively high (median 71.23 %), though there was considerable variation (28.76 to 95.89 %) in individual sessions. Median fidelity to specific BCTs across sessions also varied from 50 to 100 %. Shorter sessions, sessions run jointly by two advisors, by female advisors, or by advisors aged 45 to 54 were associated with higher levels of adherence. There was no association between adherence and subsequent attendance at the SSS.ConclusionsThese results suggest that the delivery of the intervention of this study is not likely to have been impacted by issues of fidelity. As such, we can have greater confidence that variability in the main outcome is not due to variability in SSS advisor adherence to the protocol of the taster sessions.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN76561916

Inter-generational transmission in a minority language setting: Stop consonant production by Bangladeshi heritage children and adults

Aims and objectives:The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of speech development across successive generations of heritage language users, examining how cross-linguistic, developmental and socio-cultural factors affect stop consonant production.Design:To this end, we recorded Sylheti and English stop productions of two sets of Bangladeshi heritage families: (1) first-generation adult migrants from Bangladesh and their (second-generation) UK-born children, and (2) second-generation UK-born adult heritage language users and their (third-generation) UK-born children.Data and analysis:The data were analysed auditorily, using whole-word transcription, and acoustically, examining voice onset time. Comparisons were then made in both languages across the four groups of participants, and cross-linguistically.Findings:The results revealed non-native productions of English stops by the first-generation migrants but largely target-like patterns by the remaining sets of participants. The Sylheti stops exhibited incremental changes across successive generations of speakers, with the third-generation children’s productions showing the greatest influence from English.Originality:This is one of few studies to examine both the host and heritage language in an ethnic minority setting, and the first to demonstrate substantial differences in heritage language accent between age-matched second- and third-generation children. The study shows that current theories of bilingual speech learning do not go far enough in explaining how speech develops in heritage language settings.Implications:These findings have important implications for the maintenance, transmission and long-term survival of heritage languages, and show that investigations need to go beyond second-generation speakers, in particular in communities that do not see a steady influx of new migrants.

A Phonetic Study of English Front Vowels Produced by Korean Learners of English

This study investigates how Korean learners of English (KLE) produce English front vowels. The production of eight female KLE was analyzed using Praat and VoiceSauce and was then compared with that of native English speakers. An acoustical analysis of English vowels reveals three findings. First, KLE produced English front vowels differently from native English speakers in the rate of vowel duration according to both the number of syllables and the voicing of the following consonant. Second, KEL neither differentiated between /i/ and /ɪ/, nor /ɛ/ and /æ/. Third, vowel shortening before a voiceless stop in Korean influences the higher rate of vowel shortening before a voiceless stop in English.

Acoustic Correlations of VOT, F0, and [H1-H2] in Prosodic Domain-Initial Korean and English Stops

Acoustic Correlations of VOT, F0, and [H1-H2] in Prosodic Domain-Initial Korean and English Stops

A study of the distributions and realizations of variants in the English voiceless alveolar stop

A study of the distributions and realizations of variants in the English voiceless alveolar stop

Neighbourhood Deprivation and Outcomes of Stop Smoking Support--An Observational Study.

BackgroundRates of smoking and smoking cessation vary with socio-economic status. The objectives were to assess the association between neighbourhood deprivation, completion of treatment to support quit attempts and success of quit attempts—while taking into account other predictors of outcome.Methods555,744 quit attempts supported by English Stop Smoking Services in 2009–2012 were linked to the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2010 ranks for the clients’ neighbourhood and split into deciles relative to the national IMD. Logistic regressions tested the association between neighbourhood deprivation and completion (4-week follow-up) of treatment and biochemically validated success (expired-air carbon monoxide <10ppm) while adjusting for demographics and intervention characteristics. Sensitivity analyses assessed subsamples: first supported attempts (n = 364,397), those with recorded cigarette dependence (n = 98,659) and completed treatment (n = 416,436).ResultsHigher neighbourhood deprivation was associated with reduced completion (ORadj = 0.949, 95% CI: 0.947 to 0.951) and success (ORadj = 0.957, 95% CI: 0.955 to 0.959). Results of sensitivity analyses were consistent with those of the main analysis.ConclusionsNeighbourhood deprivation was associated with small but consistent reductions in completion and success of evidence-based interventions. These associations were not explained by intervention characteristics, demographics or dependence and reduced completion did not fully account for reduced success.

Views from the Coalface: What Do English Stop Smoking Service Personnel Think about E-Cigarettes?

The UK Stop Smoking Services (SSS) are a source of information and advice on e-cigarettes for smokers and thus it is important to understand the knowledge of, and attitudes towards, e-cigarettes held by stop smoking practitioners. The datasets were English SSS quarterly monitoring returns (n = 207,883) and an online survey of English SSS practitioners, managers, and commissioners between 26th November and 15th December 2014 (n = 1801). SSS monitoring data suggested 2% of clients were using e-cigarettes to quit with SSS and that clients using e-cigarettes had similar quit rates to clients using Varenicline. Most SSS personnel are waiting for licenced e-cigarettes to become available before they will recommend them to clients. However, less than a quarter view e-cigarettes as “a good thing”. Managers and commissioners were more positive than practitioners. SSS personnel working for the NHS (hospitals and GP surgeries) were less positive about e-cigarettes than those employed elsewhere. E-cigarettes were cited as the most important reason for the recent decline in service footfall. Thus dissemination of information about e-cigarettes needs to be examined and services should address their stance on e-cigarettes with some urgency.

A Novel Approach for Development of an Expert IR System using Dimensionality Reduction Techniques and Clustering Approaches for High Dimensionality Dataset

day to day life huge amount of electronic data is generated from various resources. Such data is literally large and not easy to work with for storage and retrieval. This type of data can be treated with various efficient techniques for cleaning, compression and sorting of data. Preprocessing can be used to remove basic English stop- words from data making it compact and easy for further processing; later dimensionality reduction techniques make data more efficient and specific. This data later can be clustered for better information retrieval. This paper elaborates the various dimensionality reduction and clustering techniques applied on sample dataset C50test of 2500 documents giving promising results, their comparison and better approach for relevant information retrieval.

Electronic cigarette use and risk perception in a Stop Smoking Service in England

Introduction: Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use rose substantially within the UK in recent years but currently, Stop Smoking Services in England do not prescribe them due to a lack of regulation. Previous research has examined e-cigarette use and attitudes within English Stop Smoking Services using samples of practitioners and managers; the current study recruited a sample of service users. Methods: Participants (N = 319) aged 18–60 years old were recruited from Roy Castle FagEnds, Liverpool, England (Stop Smoking Service). A cross-sectional questionnaire was completed, which recorded demographic variables, e-cigarette use alongside risk perception, and lastly, smoking behaviour i.e. smoking duration, cigarettes per day, and nicotine dependence. Results: Most participants were female (57.1%), current smokers (53.0%), and current or former e-cigarette users (51.7%). Participants who perceived e-cigarettes as less harmful than smoked tobacco were more likely to have smoked fewer cigarettes per day (p = 0.008). Furthermore, those who felt uncertain whether e-cigarettes were safer than smoked tobacco, were less likely to have tried them (p < 0.001). Conclusion: This study suggests that e-cigarette use is becoming common among users of Stop Smoking Services (despite e-cigarettes being unavailable from such services) and that e-cigarette risk perception is related to e-cigarette status. The results highlight the importance of providing smokers intending to quit smoking with current and accurate e-cigarette information. Findings may inform future Stop Smoking Services provision and the results demonstrate that further research is warranted.

Tobacco and Health Disparities

Tobacco and Health Disparities