Use Of Tones Research Articles

An investigation of questions in Ètùló language of Benue State, Nigeria

This study investigated the formation of questions in Etulo, a minority language spoken in Benue State. It specifically examines the strategies used in forming content and polar questions in the language. Data for the study were collected during a fieldtrip to Adi in Buruku Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria. The study shows that both content and polar questions are formed in the language through different strategies. Whereas content questions are formed through the use of interrogative words such as òle/kↄ ‘where’, òle ‘which’, ème ‘who’ emine ‘how many’ among others, the main strategy employed in polar question formation is the use of tone. In addition to tone; the language also uses such particles as gbɛ́ɛ̀ and lô in polar question formation. These particles occur at the final position of a declarative sentence to indicate that it is a question.
 Key Words: Etulo, Question Formation, Polar, Interrogative Words

Emoji Skin Tone Modifiers

Emoji are widely used in computer-mediated communication to express concepts and emotions. Skin tone modifiers were added in 2015 with the hope of better representing user diversity, and, indeed, recent work has shown that these modifiers are especially popular among darker-skinned users, who are a minority on Twitter. Previous work also showed that the vast majority of tone-modified emoji have a tone similar to the user’s own skin tone, suggesting that self-representation is a major factor in tone use. In this article, we first show that the basic finding (users mainly choose a tone that is similar to their own skin tone) generalizes to different sub-populations of users, including users from majority-Black regions. We then extend the analysis of tone use to quantify and examine cases where users modulate their tones—that is, for a particular emoji, they choose either to use a different tone than their usual one or no tone at all (after having previously used one). We show that even though these uses constitute only a small proportion of emoji usage, many instances are readily classifiable as ways of representing other people. The evidence we present is therefore crucial in working toward a broader understanding of the connection between emoji and identity expression online. We also offer explanations for why the darkest emoji skin tones are not used, by examining aspects of their design, which make them less suited to self-representational usage. This highlights the need for careful consideration of both design and human diversity when creating emoji. Moreover, despite early fears in the media, we find little evidence of negative usage, even when tones are used in a non-self-representational manner. In sum, our findings lend even more support to the highly positive role that emoji and skin tone modifiers play in identity and expression in computer-mediated communication.

ПРОСОДІЯ ГЕНДЕРУ НА БРИТАНСЬКИХ ОСТРОВАХ

Gender research is a new area of humanities that is now in the making. It focuses on the cultural and social factors that determine society’s attitudes towards men and women, the behavior of individuals in connection with belonging to gender, stereotypical perceptions of male and female qualities – all that transforms gender issues from the field of biology into the field of social life and culture. The article deals with the difference between male and female voices within frequency, dynamic and temporal characteristics of various regional types of British pronunciation. Intonation appears as a multicomponent system formation in which social and regional peculiarities within individual groups of speakers are refracted in a complex, indirect way, being in constant dialectic unity. The author suggests that frequency of the main tone is one of the main factors which stipulates male and female voices’ specifics. The conducted experiment convinced us that for an objective reflection of the contemporary variation of English intonation on the British Isles, it is necessary to take into account the factors of social and situational variability of speech. A significant difference between male and female voices is observed in the frequency of the descending tones. Both men and women tend to increase descending tones, but women are ahead of men in this direction, increasing the frequency by 22% vs 13%. Accordingly, the frequency of ascending tones decreases, and this trend is largely manifested by women. Consequently, women are particularly sensitive to current trends in the use of tones and become agents of innovation.

Inflectional Complexity And Verb Classes In Chichimec

In this paper, we show that the verbal inflection of Chichimec displays an interesting degree of complexity. Such complexity is created by the intersection of three different inflectional subsystems. One of such systems is the one formed by the inflectional classes of prefixes encoding person of subject and tense/aspect/mood. A second and partially independent subsystem involves a rich array of stem alternation patterns while a third one involves the inflectional use of tone, which is, for the most part, lexically specified.

Kearifan Lokal Musikal dalam Lagu-lagu Album Bali Kumara


 The topic of this article covers local wisdom in the songs of Bali Kumara first album. The purpose of writing this article is to describe the local wisdom in the songs of the Bali Kumara first album. The method used in this study is descriptive-qualitative. I Komang Darmayuda as a composer of Bali Kumara first Album songs is an informant in this research. The data is audio recording of songs in Bali Kumara first album. The Balinese local wisdom in the songs of Bali Kumara first album lies in the use of tone named titi laras pelog and slendro, as well as the use of the Balinese language such as singgih and sor. Pelog and slendro tones are implemented in the main melodies, either by keyboard instruments, gamelan or vocals. In some songs, there are also other scales, such as diatonic and chromatic, which do not diminish the pelog and slendro colors. Seen from the point of view basa singgih (levels in the Balinese language), most of the songs in the album Bali Kumara uses basa singgih, and some basa sor. Balinese pop songs as one of the profane art that grow and develop in Bali should contain elements of the Baliense local wisdom. The local wisdom contained in the songs of Bali Kumara album can be a foothold for the performers of Balinese pop songs especially composers in creating works, so that the identity of the Balinese pop songs is maintained.

THE PROBLEMATIC INFLUENCES OF FIRST LANGUAGE CULTURE ON ESL AND MODES TO OVERCOME THE SAME

ESL teaching is common, all over the world because of the significance and reach of the English language. It is a globally connective language and has become indispensible due to objectives of business, education or simply communication. The main issue while learning a different language comes out to be with the cultural differences in the grammatical concepts that one has been familiar with since childhood. It is rather challenging to overcome such an integral part of language that most of us consider the “rules” to abide by, so that we can make sense of statements. For example, the Mandarin language has four basic tones, and another fifth neutral tone. The use of tones are extremely important to the meaning generated, and thus are not compromisable. If a tone is missed out, the implication changes, thus leaving the output incorrect.Such tones do not exist in the English language, however it comes with its own set of complexities, such as the tense. The concept of tense in does not influence the verb in Mandarin language.When referring to an action that occurred in the past, such as “eat”, the English language requires it to be changed to “ate” (referring to simple past tense), however, in the Mandarin language, the verb remains in the same form (chi).Research in such areas are necessary to understand and develop methodologies to overcome these issues for faster and better acquisition of language.Overcoming grammatical and linguistic differences between languages, and the comparison of languages for ESL teaching and learningESL is one of those subjects which enjoy maximum demand due to the basic principle on which it is based - communication. In a world which is being repeatedly called a “global village”, it is quite expected that a common ground for interaction will emerge. English is, of course, the most spoken language throughout the world as a result of various phenomenon such as colonisation, immigration etc. The English language has grown to become the “international business language”, wherein without business the globe would not be functioning in the manner it currently is.The purpose of ESL is never put in a position of doubt, for some it might be the acceptance in university or a job, while for others it is a more important deal of settling in a foreign land with a foreign tongue.While learning a second language, it is expected that there will be anxiety or nervousness among the students. ESL teaching techniques are most important as they are responsible for ensuring comfort and participation, and thus, improvement in the students.This paper reviews the current methodologies employed in teaching and learning English as a second language, along with the very problematic scenario of grammatical differences between the many languages of the world. It is expected that these “rules” of grammar or lack thereof in some languages causes some serious struggles in the process of understanding and incorporating English into one’s vocabulary. Unless simultaneously learnt, it is quite difficult for someone to ignore the ways in which a language they have been familiar with since childhood constructs a sentence, as compared to the English language. On top of that, English is a tricky language, with appropriate pronunciation and homophones which takes much time and work to learn and remember. It is a topic which requires acknowledgement.

Observing parent-child purchase related interactions in US-based retail environments: replication and extension

This study replicates and extends work by Buijzen and Valkenburg. We observed and coded purchase-related interactions of parent-child dyads in stores in the US, collected questionnaire data from them and collected questionnaire data from parents visiting stores without their children in order to assess external validity. The current study found key differences between families who bring their child to the store and those who do not. Observation and coding, which examined parent-child dyads with children between the ages of 2–12, also revealed that younger children exhibited more coercive behaviors than older children by begging, crying, and negative tone use; parent television viewing was related to child requests; and parent communication and control orientation as measured by the Buijzen Consumer Communication scale were linked to child consumer behavior.

Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin-English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin. We tested 72 Mandarin-English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions. Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use. This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language-even when the latter was learned natively.

Fantasy under Duress: Connie Scozzaro’s <i>Contrapposto Action Queen</i>

This article explores how Connie Scozzaro’s Contrapposto Action Queen (2013) repeatedly takes up two mystifications of femininity from classical mythology, Venus and Lamia, so as to subject them to critique. It takes the images of Venus and Lamia from the writing of two poets, Charles Algernon Swinburne and John Keats. These examples are shown to be epitomes of male poetic fantasy. Within Scozzaro’s collection these fantasies are dissected, undermined, or taken apart through exaggeration, ironization, and the use of tone. The book makes explicit that within patriarchal society, male fantasies are part of a social condition of gendered violence. Contra Brandon Brown’s argument that Contrapposto Action Queen articulates the dialectic of the possible and the actual, this article articulates that for Scozzaro the possible is always conditioned by fantasy. It finishes by looking at Theodor Adorno’s essay ‘Lyric Poetry and Society’. Where Adorno states the lyric subject manifests itself with masculine ‘unrestrained individuation’, this fails to grasp how the lyric poem can utilize strategies of concealment to stress the consequences of the lyric subject’s gendering.

Abstract PR188

Background & Objectives: Uric acid (UA) is a marker of oxidative stress. Labor may generate reactive oxygen species by repetitive ischemia and reperfusion1. Recent retrospective report has associated hyperuricemia with decrease in vascular relaxation and uterine contractility2. Given these associations, we hypothesized that serum UA levels may increase beyond physiological levels in low risk parturients during labor with a decrease in incidence of post-spinal hypotension and impaired uterine contractility during non-elective cesarean deliveries. Materials & Methods: We included 100 normotensive parturients with singleton pregnancy coming for emergency cesarean delivery under subarachnoid block (SAB). UA samples were obtained on admission to labor room and before shifting for cesarean delivery. Following SAB, episodes of hypotension and total vasopressor dose given to keep SBP>100mmHg or prevent a fall of >20% in MAP upto time of uterine incision was recorded. Following placental expulsion, uterine tone and contractility were assessed every 2 minutes for 10 minutes and graded as satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Total dose of oxytocin infused was recorded. In cases of unsatisfactory uterine tone use of other uterotonics and other measures taken to manage uterine atony were recorded. Intraoperative blood loss was estimated using modified Gross formula. Results: There was no significant correlation between UA change and duration of labor. Incidence of post-spinal hypotension was significantly lower in women with hyperuricemia than in those with normal UA levels (45.5% vs 67.2%).Mean UA levels were significantly higher (4.94±1.39 vs 3.95±1.38mg/dl) in patients not needing vasopressors to maintain their blood pressure within normal limits. Supplemental uterotonics were used in 31% patients to maintain satisfactory uterine score. Though greater percentage of these patients were those with hyperuricemia, the results were not statistically significant (p=0.203). The mean blood loss was higher in patients with hyperuricemia (631ml vs 577ml), though not statistically significant (p=0.208). Conclusion: In normotensive, healthy parturients undergoing cesarean delivery under SAB, elevated serum UA levels are associated with lower incidence of post-spinal hypotension and reduced need of vasopressors to maintain maternal blood pressure within a normal range.

Commentary: Culture mediates the effects of humidity on language

Does (the presence or complexity of) tone inversely correlate with dryness of climate? The authors (Everett et al.) suggest that the absence of ambient humidity in the air negatively correlates with the presence of (complex?) lexical tone, partly because of the effect that dry air has to increase the difficulty in achieving precise articulatory targets. There are two main problems with the argumentation used. 1. Conflating ‘tone’ with ‘pitch’ or ‘fundamental frequency’, and mistaking ‘complexity’ with a syllable domain for tone assignment; 2. conflating ‘dry climate’ with the absence of humidity. The authors are not guilty in an absolute sense of these problems, acknowledging that there are complications. Their reliance on pitch contrasts as a proxy for tonal category contrasts, and the use of air humidity rather than (easily available) climate information for the ranges of different languages means that the authors are dealing with ephemeral correlations between proxy features. In the next two sections, I will critique the use of tone primarily to refer to distinctions realised by pitch, and the use of humidity as a powerful explanatory for the existence of tone categories. The authors acknowledge that ‘many non-pitch phenomena are associated with the production of tone, including ancillary laryngealization and duration influences’, but go on to claim that ‘the heightened role of F0 (and therefore pitch) in languages with complex tone is evident in the fact that its fine-grained modulation is required on every or almost every syllable, in contrast to pitch accent languages’. First, this …

Commentary: The role of language contact in creating correlations between humidity and tone

Everett et al. (2015) find a that complex tonal languages tend to be found in humid environments a correlation that holds up within different families and parts of the world. Despite the impressive statistical and experimental support for this causal claim, evidence is needed from natural language use, such as Chinese speakers changing their use of tone depending on humidity, before the claim can be considered well supported. There is otherwise a risk that this correlation could be an artifact of history of language families and language contact. To illustrate this, I show in a series of simulations that random selection of languages followed by language contact can create a positive global correlation between tone and humidity with as much as a 83 per cent probability, and a 47 per cent probability of holding within at least two different macro-areas. Language contact is additionally responsible for these correlations holding up when controlling for language relatedness, as I show that when using the random independent samples test employed by Everett et al., their result is still expected by chance as much as 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the time. I further show how contact can create correlations within families by a phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of tone in Niger-Congo and Sino-Tibetan. The number of tones that languages use correlates with humidity within five different global areas (Africa, Eurasia, South America, North America, and the Pacific), and within four different language families (Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, Afro-Asiatic, and Niger-Congo). This is better statistical support than even for word order universals, which despite having some support when sampling from different macro-areas (Dryer 1992) do not seem to hold consistently within large language families (Dunn et al. 2011). In addition, the experimental evidence that they cite showing that dry air has …

Yoruba Films and the Problem of Toneless Orthography

Much research attention has been devoted to Yoruba films, and the prominent position they now occupy in Nigeria. However, to the best of our knowledge, none of these research works has attempted to take a critical look at the problem associated with the use of tones and diacritics in YoruÌ€bá films. The major issue that engages our attention in this work is the problem of ambiguity occasioned by producers refusal to make adequate use of tones and diacritics in writing the titles of their films. Through the purposive sampling method, fifteen films were carefully selected and watched. In a tabular form, the researcher listed out these titles, their possible interpretations, the intended titles and the procedure of getting the real titles was analysed.

A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Pragmatic Markers as Speech-like Features in Turkish EFL Learners’ Argumentative Essays

Authentic learner data is important when investigating the use of the target language by learners during second language acquisition process. Whether it is written or spoken, corpus-based learner data provides an explanation for how learners actually use a foreign language and serves as a relatively narrow empirical basis that second language acquisition research tends to be based on. Analysing learner data has two main goals: to help researchers to better understand the second language acquisition process and to highlight the factors that influence this process (Granger, 2008). Gilquin & Paquot (2007) state that many learners use features more typical of speech than of writing, giving their essays an overly oral tone that may be problematic for learners, as academic writing requires an awareness of the appropriate stylistic use of tone. According to Aijmer (2004), learners may overuse or underuse certain structures in their writing in comparison with native speakers. Pragmatic markers are linguistic features that are more peculiar to conversation than writing, for instance well, you know, I think, etc. and learners may mistakenly include them in their academic writing. This study examines the pragmatic markers in the written text of Turkish English as foreign language (EFL) learners. The study's aim is to analyse the learners’ use of speech-like features when writing an academic essay. In addition, it is important to investigate whether or not learners overuse or underuse such features when compared to native speakers. Data were gathered from three corpora: the Turkish Corpus of Learner English, the Japanese Corpus of Learner English, and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. Frequency counts and log-likelihood calculations were utilized as quantitative methods to measure the overuse/underuse and to determine whether the possible differences are statistically significant. The results indicated that Turkish EFL learners tend to use oral features in their argumentative essays, which may negatively influence their writing in terms of a stylistically appropriate tone.

Food crisis coverage by social and traditional media: A case study of the 2008 Irish dioxin crisis

The world of communication has changed significantly in the last decade as a result of the evolution of social media. Food crisis managers and communicators should be cognizant of the messages presented to the public by all media channels during a crisis. Using the 2008 Irish dioxin contamination incident as an example, a quantitative content analysis was carried out to investigate the relationship between social and traditional media. Messages published in printed newspapers (n = 141), blogs and forums (n = 107), and Twitter (n = 68) were analysed to investigate sourcing practice, story topic and use of tone. Results revealed that traditional media relied on diverse offline sources in reporting a wide range of topics. In comparison, social media responded faster and diminished faster, using offline and online media news messages as the primary sources in reporting very limited topics. No significant difference was found in the presence of negative tone across media.

Effects of Smartphones on Pharmacist-Physician Clinical Communication

Background: Clinical pharmacist interventions are associated with improved patient outcomes and cost savings. Expanded interprofessional communication strategies may improve the efficiency and quality of the communication of these interventions. Objective: To determine the impact of smartphone device use on pharmacists' efficiency when communicating clinical interventions and to determine factors related to smartphone use that improve and impede communication. Methods: A prospective, 2-phase, observational study was completed. In phase 1, work shadowing observations involved general internal medicine (GIM) pharmacists who communicated interventions to a physician's smartphone (BlackBerry device) and multiorgan transplant (MOT) pharmacists who used traditional modes of communication (paging, phone call, face-to-face). On each ward, various aspects of the interventions were documented for a total of 20 hours. In phase 2, 10 interviews were conducted with GIM pharmacists and physicians to gain their perspectives on BlackBerry device communication. Results: In phase 1, no significant difference was found in median time to resolution (order change or drug information response given) between accepted interventions from the smartphone group (15.5 minutes) versus traditional modes of communication in the GIM group (4 minutes) and the MOT group (8.5 minutes) (p = 0.74). In phase 2, themes that emerged across the different clinical groups included perceived improvements in communication processes (efficiency, decreased wait times, and triaging of issues), concerns for potential miscommunication (use of tone in the emails), and recommendations regarding BlackBerry best practices (dealing with urgent/nonurgent issues and establishment of pharmacist-physician interprofessional relationships). Conclusions: Despite no significant difference in median time to resolution of pharmacists' interventions communicated through physician BlackBerry devices compared to traditional modes, the majority of interviewees perceived this device to be a positive communication tool resulting in improved efficiency of team communication.

The separation between music and speech: Evidence from the perception of Cantonese tones

This study investigates the relationship between music and speech, testing whether musical training has any facilitatory effects on native tone language speakers. Some Cantonese tone pairs are merging in recent years. The merging subjects have poorer general lexical tone perception than the control subjects. Previous studies showed that musical training facilitates lexical tone perception of nontone language speakers, but it is unclear if the same is true for tone language speakers. Three groups of listeners (standard Cantonese, merging Cantonese, nontone) with and without musical training participated in AX discrimination tasks of Cantonese monosyllables and pure tones resynthesized from Cantonese lexical tones. Results show that while musical training enhances lexical tone perception of nontone listeners, it has little influence on Cantonese listeners. The findings suggest that the linguistic use of tones is more fundamental and more robust than musical tones. Our results are compatible with the idea that linguistic and musical mechanisms belong to separate but overlapping domains.

Kera

Kera is an Eastern Chadic language spoken by about 50,000 people in southwestern Chad, south of the town of Fianga, and in major towns of Cameroon and Chad. Most Kera speakers would claim to speak a standard variety of Kera although there is some variation depending on gender and location. The differences involve the relationship between tone and voicing, the number of contrastive tones and the presence or absence of a voicing contrast. Women are more conservative than men in the use of tone in rural settings and more innovative than men in urban settings (Pearce 2009). Previous literature on Kera includes Ebert (1975, 1976, 1979) and Pearce (1999, 2006a, b, c, 2007a, 2008, 2009).

A Logarithmic Speed-Difficulty Trade-off in Speech Production

We explored the relations between task difficulty and speech time in picture description tasks. Six native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (CH group) and six native speakers or Indo-European languages (IE group) produced quick and accurate verbal descriptions of pictures in a self-paced manner. The pictures always involved two objects, a plate and one of the three objects (a stick, a fork, or a knife) located and oriented differently with respect to the plate in different trials. An index of difficulty was assigned to each picture. CH group showed lower reaction time and much lower speech time. Speech time scaled linearly with the log-transformed index of difficulty in all subjects. The results suggest generality of Fitts' law for movement and speech tasks, and possibly for other cognitive tasks as well. The differences between the CH and IE groups may be due to specific task features, differences in the grammatical rules of CH and IE languages, and possible use of tone for information transmission.

How Can We Teach the Mother Tongue without Creating a Competitive Environment? A Comparative Study on Teaching of Punctuation Marks Using the Jigsaw Technique.

This study aims to determine the effect/contribution of the use of the jigsaw technique in the teaching of punctuation marks in mother tongue education on/to the academic improvement of students. The functionality of reading, speaking and writing skills falling within the understanding and expression domains of learning is dependent upon the proper use of punctuation marks so as to strengthen the meaning. Use of tone, stress, gesture and mimics which are effective in speaking enhances the effectiveness of the speech. Just as nonverbal behaviors are instrumental to rendering speech effective and making meaning and expression richer, the ability to express/understand the exact feeling and thoughts which are intended to be conveyed in reading and writing is dependent upon the use of punctuation marks by assigning them functions for different purposes. To that end, answers have been sought to the question how punctuation marks could be better taught in mother tongue education at primary education level. The jigsaw teaching technique, a contemporary teaching method, has been set to work in the teaching process. The study universe is consisted of a primary school in central Erzurum during the first semester of school year 2009 - 2010. The sample consists of two branches from the 4th grade that were selected using random sampling method, one serving as the study group, the other as the control group. The results of the study revealed that the jigsaw technique was superior to traditional teaching methods in the teaching of punctuation marks. Key words: Turkish teaching, punctuation marks, language skills, jigsaw techniqu