Vowel Contrast Research Articles

Acoustic correlates of aspirated consonants in Maranao

Aspirated obstruents are rare in Austronesian languages, one exception being the southern Philippine language Maranao, as reported by Lobel and Riwarung [Oceanic Linguist. 48, 403–438 (2009)]. In Maranao, aspirated consonants occur as a reflex of a cluster of a former voiced stop and a homorganic obstruent (*bp > p’, *dt > t’, *ds > s’, *gk> k ’). The most obvious correlate to non-Maranao speakers is a dramatic raising of the following vowel, which also occurs after voiced obstruents, but not after historic single voiceless obstruents—e.g., /təkaw/ [təkaw] ‘startled’ (earlier *təkaw) vs. /tək’aw/ [təkʰɣw] ‘thief’ (earlier *təɡkaw) However, native Maranao speakers regard the raising as a property of the consonants, not the vowels. We examined the correlates of the apparent aspiration. The vowel raising is realized robustly and consistently, with some overlap in F1/F2 space among contrastive vowels. However, aspirated and unaspirated stops also show differences in VOT and in measures of breathiness of the following vowel, albeit with somewhat less consistency. Differences between /s/ and /s’/ were not evident except for realizations of following vowels. We explore the role of pharyngeal expansion due to voicing in the development of these Maranao segmental realizations.

Speech intelligibility of English spoken by Indonesian and Taiwanese speakers and judged by Taiwanese listeners: application of TOCS+ automatic software

Former investigations were about the familiarity advantage that people with the same language backgrounds are more intelligible. Besides, particular English was most intelligible to participants with high certain English familiarity. This study investigated how Taiwanese listeners judge the English speech intelligibility of Taiwanese and Indonesian speakers. Thirty Indonesian speakers and thirty Taiwanese speakers participated in this study. Ninety Taiwanese listeners were recruited to judge speech intelligibility. The recording and judging process used the TOCS+ software (Hodge et al., 2009). The software provided 124 contrast items of minimal pairs for the recognition task, including contrast of syllable shape, vowels, and consonants. The listeners' judgments were then analyzed by the TOCS+ software automatically. It was found that Taiwanese English speaker is more intelligible to Taiwanese listeners. The variables that predict intelligibility for Indonesian speakers are syllable shape contrast item correct (SSIC) and consonant item correct (CIC), while Taiwanese speakers’ SSIC and vowel item correct (VIC) did not predict intelligibility. Only CIC predicts intelligibility. Both groups made similar errors in consonant voicing. The study's findings contribute to the teaching materials for the English preparation of students who will study abroad.  Â

Vowel-initial glottalization as a prominence cue in speech perception and online processing

Three experiments examined the relevance of vowel-initial glottalization in the perception of vowel contrasts in American English, in light of the claimed prominence-marking function of glottalization in word-initial vowels. Experiment 1 showed that the presence of a preceding glottal stop leads listeners to re-calibrate their perception of a vowel contrast in line with the prominence-driven modulation of vowel formants. Experiment 2 manipulated cues to glottalization along a continuum and found that subtler cues generate the same effect, with bigger perceptual shifts as glottalization cues increase in strength. Experiment 3 examined the timecourse of this effect in a visual world eyetracking task, finding a rapid influence of glottalization which is simultaneous with the influence of formant cues in online processing. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of phonetically detailed prominence marking in speech perception, and implications for models of processing which consider segmental and prosodic information jointly.

Same vowels but different contrasts: Mandarin listeners’ perception of English /ei/-/iː/ in unfamiliar phonotactic contexts

The study presented here examines how adult L2 listeners’ L1 phonotactics interferes with L2 vowel perception in different consonantal contexts. We examined Mandarin listeners’ perception of the English /ei/-/iː/ vowel contrast in three onset consonantal contexts, /p f w/, which represent different phonotactic scenarios with respect to the permissibility of Mandarin phonology. L1 Mandarin listeners (N = 42) completed a series of three tasks: a categorisation task, a vowel identification task, and an AXB discrimination task. The results show that English /ei/-/iː/ are perceived as highly contrastive in the /p/ context because both /pei/ and /piː/ constitute a licit sequence in Mandarin phonology. However, participants experience substantial /ei/-/iː/ category confusion in the /f/ and /w/ contexts, where Mandarin listeners repair perceptually by modifying the vowel quality in illicit (unattested) consonant–vowel sequences, i.e., */fiː/ → /fei/ and */wiː/ → /wei/. Further exploratory analyses indicate that L2 listeners’ vowel perception in unfamiliar phonotactic contexts is associated with their target language experience, typically indicated by their L2 vocabulary size. The findings thus suggest that the acquisition of novel phonotactic regularities is tied to increased experience with the L2 lexicon.

Investigating the Efficacy of Using Online Resources for Production Training in Learning Non-Native Vowel Contrasts

The current study investigates the benefits of virtual phonetic training on second language (L2) vowel production and examines whether production training improves perception. While the benefits of production instructions were investigated with instructions that were delivered by either a virtual or a face-to face teacher, a few studies investigated the benefits of online resources for second language (L2) learning with tutor audio instructions and feedback. Fifty-five Arabic speakers (21 served as a control group) took part in 3 one-to-one training sessions and were trained on producing seven Standard Southern British English (SSBE) vowels (/ ɪ, ɛ, ʌ, ɑː, ɔː, ɒ, ʊ/) that have been found to be difficult for Arabic learners of English. Improvements were assessed by their vowel identification, category discrimination accuracy and their vowel intelligibility. The results showed some improvements in vowel intelligibility and that vowel learning paved the way for improvement in perception, relative to the control group. The results indicate that using web-based tools along with audio instructions are beneficial for L2 learners and confirmed previous findings about the relationship between improvement in speech perception and production.

Metacognition in Second Language Speech Perception and Production

AbstractIn this study, we assessed metacognition in nonnative language speech perception and production. Spanish novice learners of French identified and produced the French vowel contrast /ø/–/œ/ and, on each trial, rated their confidence in their responses. Participants’ confidence in perception predicted their identification accuracy, suggesting that novice learners’ metacognitive skills in nonnative speech perception are efficient at the onset of language learning. However, participants’ confidence in production did not align with a fine‐grained precision measure of their own production (indexed by Mahalanobis distance to the native French target‐vowel space) nor with a categorical measure of production (in terms of being within/outside the native speakers’ zone), indicating that metacognition in nonnative sound production is not yet efficient in novice learners. Overall, confidence ratings were similar and highly correlated between the perception and production tasks, but there was no association between the two domains in task performance or metacognitive ability. We discuss the ramifications of these findings for language learning theories and language teaching strategies as well as for the ongoing debate about the perception–production relationship.

The Acquisition of /ɪ/-/iː/ Is Challenging: Perceptual and Production Evidence from Cypriot Greek Speakers of English.

This study aims to investigate the perception and production of the English /ɪ/-/iː/ vowel contrast by Cypriot Greek speakers of English as a second language (L2). The participants completed a classification test in which they classified the L2 vowels in terms of their first language (L1) categories, a discrimination test in which they distinguished the members of the vowel contrast, and a production test in which they produced the target vowels. The results showed that they classified both L2 /ɪ/-/iː/ mostly in terms of L1 /i/, which denotes the formation of a completely overlapping contrast according to the theoretical framework of the Universal Perceptual Model (UPM), and that they could hardly distinguish the vowel pair. In addition, their productions deviated in most acoustic parameters from the corresponding productions of English controls. The findings suggest that /ɪ/-/iː/ may carry a universal marker of difficulty for speakers with L1s that do not possess this contrast. This distinction is difficult even for experienced L2 speakers probably because they had never been exposed to naturalistic L2 stimuli and they do not use the L2 that much in their daily life. Finally, the study verifies UPM's predictions about the discriminability of the contrast and extends the model's implications to speech production; when an L2 vowel contrast is perceived as completely overlapping, speakers activate a (near-) unified interlinguistic exemplar in their vowel space, which represents both L2 vowels.

Vowel trajectories of African Americans in Georgia, USA

Within the United States, dialectal variation is often characterized by vowel shifts: systematic differences in vowels' relative qualities and vowel-inherent dynamics. The African American Vowel Shift (AAVS), in particular, includes raising and fronting of front lax /ɪ ɛ æ/, among other features. The more recent pan-regional Low Back Merger Shift (LBMS), by contrast, includes lowering and backing of the same vowels. We evaluate these two shifts in an audio corpus of over 40 Black speakers from the Southern state of Georgia. Speakers, born between the 1930s and 2000, represent five demographic generations. Normalized formant values (F1,F2) from five temporal points per token are input to Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs). We test for significant changes in vowels' trajectories across time by fitting Year of Birth as a continuous smooth term. Additionally, we use linear mixed-effects modeling to test for raising versus lowering on the (F2–F1) front-vowel diagonal, across generations. Evidence from GAMMs and linear modeling indicates raised positions of /ɪ ɛ æ/ among older generations (1950s–1980s), followed by significant retraction from 1990–2000. These acoustic results are consistent with strengthening of the AAVS in the third quarter of the 20th Century, followed by a rapid transition to the pan-regional LBMS.

Are neutral roots in Uyghur really neutral? Evaluating a covert phonemic contrast

This paper looks at the case of so-called neutral roots in Uyghur (Turkic: China), whose idiosyncratic behavior with respect to the backness harmony system has been analyzed as stemming from a covert vowel contrast. Based on considerations of the structural properties of the language and the results of an experimental study, we suggest that an analysis based on lexical exceptionality is more parsimonious than the traditional analysis, unifying the treatment of neutral roots with other cases of exceptionality in the harmony system and accounting for a relationship between the patterning of roots and their frequency. We close by discussing implications for covert contrast analyses in general.

Development of categorical speech perception in Mandarin-speaking children and adolescents.

Although children develop categorical speech perception at a very young age, the maturation process remains unclear. A cross-sectional study in Mandarin-speaking 4-, 6-, and 10-year-old children, 14-year-old adolescents, and adults (n=104, 56 males, all Asians from mainland China) was conducted to investigate the development of categorical perception of four Mandarin phonemic contrasts: lexical tone contrast Tone 1-2, vowel contrast /u/-/i/, consonant aspiration contrast /p/-/ph /, and consonant formant transition contrast /p/-/t/. The results indicated that different types of phonemic contrasts, and even the identification and discrimination of the same phonemic contrast, matured asynchronously. The observation that tone and vowel perception are achieved earlier than consonant perception supports the phonological saliency hypothesis.

Hefei Mandarin

Hefei Mandarin is a Chinese dialect spoken in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, China, as illustrated in Figure 1. According to The Language Atlas of China (1987), Hefei Mandarin is a sub-branch of Jianghuai Mandarin, i.e. the varieties of Mandarin dialects distributed between the Yangtze River and the Huai River. While its syllable structure is relatively simple, Hefei Mandarin has a rich vowel inventory and various types of rimes, including three contrastive high back vowels /ɯ o ɤ/, non-nasalized vs. nasalized vowels as syllable rimes such as /i/ vs. /ĩ/, and three syllabic consonants [ɹ̩ ɹ̩ʷ ɻ̩] (Li 1936; Meng 1962, 1997; Li 1994, 1997; Wang 1996; Kong 2003, 2004, 2006; Kong & Zhang 2006; Kong, Wu & Li 2019).

Phonemic Inventory of Sikles Gurung

This paper describes the consonant and vowel phonemes of the variety of Gurung, or Tamu Kyui, spoken in Sikles Village. Unlike other documented varieties, Sikles Gurung is analyzed with contrastive vowel duration, word-initial obstruent voicing, and two register categories. This analysis is supported by data collected with the help of Sikles speakers living in Nepal and New York City.

Vowel Perception and Production in Native ki-Swahili Speaking Children Acquiring English as a Foreign Language

Abstract This study investigated the perception and production of English unrounded vowel minimal pairs /ɑ/ – /ɜ/; /æ/ – /ɑ/ and /i/ – /ɪ/, by a group of twenty native ki-Swahili speaking children averaging 9.9 years of age, who learned English through classroom instruction. The study was conducted in a typical foreign language acquisition (FLA) context. All the children participated in vowel perception and production tests. The findings revealed that the participants relied on their first language (L1) phonetic contrast knowledge when encoding vowel contrast. Moreover, factors that contributed to this problem of vowel contrast encoding included the size of the speakers’ vowel inventory, their limited exposure to spheres for interacting with the language outside the classroom environment and their social setting. Although the participants in this study demonstrated better ability in their vowel production than in their vowel perception, the results confirm those challenges that have been associated with FLA perceptual studies and how a young speaker’s first language significantly influences the child’s acquisition of English.

The Phonological Influences on Non-Native Phonetic Change

Introduction: Studies of cross-language perception at the segmental level generally find that adults have great difficulty understanding the contrast of non-native consonants and/or vowels. Non-original phonotactics are often generated by type accuracy and error. Purpose: This article examines the effect of phonology on non-native phonetic changes. Methods: This research is a qualitative research with a literature review study method from the latest research. The collected data were analyzed by in-depth analysis. Results: Based on the results of data analysis, it shows that non-native speakers are not as accurate in the production of different illegal sequences. These findings also imply that linguistic experiences with native tones need not facilitate non-native phonetic changes. However, non-native phonetics change if there is habituation and construction in the right way. Conclusion: It can be concluded that non-native English still has problems in proper English articulation. Given the importance of phonetic accuracy in expressing spoken messages, foreign speakers must pay close attention to this matter and fix it by encouraging, involving and involving them every time to practice.

The Phonological Influences on Non-Native Phonetic Change

Introduction: Studies of cross-language perception at the segmental level generally find that adults have great difficulty understanding the contrast of non-native consonants and/or vowels. Non-original phonotactics are often generated by type accuracy and error. Purpose: This article examines the effect of phonology on non-native phonetic changes. Methods: This research is a qualitative research with a literature review study method from the latest research. The collected data were analyzed by in-depth analysis. Results: Based on the results of data analysis, it shows that non-native speakers are not as accurate in the production of different illegal sequences. These findings also imply that linguistic experiences with native tones need not facilitate non-native phonetic changes. However, non-native phonetics change if there is habituation and construction in the right way. Conclusion: It can be concluded that non-native English still has problems in proper English articulation. Given the importance of phonetic accuracy in expressing spoken messages, foreign speakers must pay close attention to this matter and fix it by encouraging, involving and involving them every time to practice.

L2 Perception of Contrastive Vowel Nasality in Brazilian Portuguese

AbstractAlthough not undisputed, it is generally agreed that Brazilian Portuguese (BP) has lexically contrastive vowel nasality, for instance between [si] ‘if; oneself‘ and [sĩ] ‘yes.‘ It is known that second-language (L2) learners of BP struggle with oral-nasal vowel contrasts in perception, but less is known on how L2 learners perform in perception. This paper reports on a study that investigated the perception of BP contrastive vowel nasality by a group of English-native learners of BP and a native speaker control group to assess how non-native listeners perform in pre-lexical discrimination and lexical identification of contrastive vowel nasality. Although results from a vowel discrimination task revealed no differences between L2 and L1 listeners in terms of pre-lexical perception, a lexical identification task revealed that some oral-nasal vowel contrasts impeded lexical access in L2 listeners. These findings highlight how L2 listeners can perform comparably to L1 listeners in perception of non-native sound contrasts (here, vowel nasality) at the pre-lexical level, but may still struggle in encoding those contrasts at a lexical level.

개별 학습자 단계에서 영어 모음 [i]-[ɪ] 음향 신호 사용의 지각-조음 관계

This study examined the perception-production relationship in the acoustic cue use of the English vowel contrast [i]-[ɪ] at the individual L2 learner level among native Korean speakers. Perceptual stimuli were systematically manipulated for vowel duration, using the natural stimuli bead and bid as basic tokens. Percentages of selecting a word used as the basic token as answers were estimated for perceptual coefficients. For production coefficients, ratios [i]/[ɪ] of vowel duration and formant values were calculated. Various and conflicting patterns were found in the perception-production relationship in the vowel cue use at the individual learner level. Methodological issues were raised, including the need for difficulty adjustments between perception and production tasks, as well as the need for a longitudinal study examining the developmental processes of individual learners' perception and production of L2 phonemic contrasts.

An ultrasound study of high vowel devoicing in Tokyo Japanese: Evidence for the vowel gesture retention

High vowels in Tokyo Japanese are typically devoiced between voiceless obstruents, but controversy remains over whether vowel gestures persist when devoiced or are instead deleted. A previous ultrasound study (Iwasaki et al., 2020) showed that the lingual articulation of the release burst of /kV/ differs by vowel context even when the vowels are devoiced. This study uses tongue surface contours derived from midsagittal ultrasound images to investigate the effects of vowel devoicing on changes in quantified tongue shape over time. Native speakers of Tokyo Japanese produced word pairs (/C1VC2e/) that contrasted in the voicing of V, which was either /i/ or /u/. Tongue shape was characterized by Fourier transforming tangent angles along each contour (Dawson et al., 2016). Time-normalized trajectories over the /C1VC2e/ sequence were compared by vowel context (/i/ versus /u/) and voicing environment (devoiced versus voiced). Preliminary results show that the real component of the first Fourier coefficient is sensitive todetecting evolving shape differences between the two vowel contexts over the sequence, not just when the vowels are voiced, but also when they are devoiced. Based on these results, the high vowel contrast persists even in the devoiced environment, suggesting that devoiced vowels are not deleted.

Speaking rate normalization across different talkers in the perception of Japanese stop and vowel length contrasts.

Perception of duration is critically influenced by the speaking rate of the surrounding context. However, to what extent this speaking rate normalization is talker-specific is understudied. This experiment investigated whether Japanese listeners' perception of temporally contrastive phonemes is influenced by the speaking rate of the surrounding context, and more importantly, whether the effect of the contextual speaking rate persists across different talkers for different types of contrasts: a singleton-geminate stop contrast and short-long vowel contrast in Japanese. The results suggest that listeners generalized their rate-based adjustments to different talkers' speech regardless of whether the target contrasts depended on silent closure duration or vowel duration. Our results thus support the view that speaking rate normalization is an obligatory process that happens in the early phase of perception.

The longitudinal impact of self-reflection and integrated pronunciation instruction on L2 French learners’ production of /y/ and /u/

Abstract Although pronunciation can be fostered through explicit instruction, instructors need practical strategies to support their learners’ pronunciation (Darcy, 2018; Derwing, 2018; Derwing & Munro, 2015; Levis, 2018). Additionally, “researching longitudinal development of L2 learners [pronunciation] is essential to understanding influences in their success” (Derwing & Munro, 2013, p.163). This three-semester-long experimental quantitative study on 72 French learners examined whether self-reflection (open-ended questionnaires) as a learning strategy could complement integrated explicit pronunciation instruction and support the development of intelligible production of the two contrastive vowels /y/ and /u/. Results on pre/post read-aloud tests surrounding pronunciation lessons were compared between a treatment (instruction + self-reflection), a comparison (instruction only) and a control group (neither instruction, nor self-reflection), and within each group to determine if there was significant growth over time. Findings revealed that self-reflection combined with explicit instruction led to better learning outcomes and production gains when compared to oral natural input.