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Kamińska, Tatiana Ewa. "Problems in Scottish English phonology /." Tübingen : M. Niemeyer, 1995. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb35784831c.
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Ruthan, Mohammed Qasem. "English Loanword phonology in Arabic." OpenSIUC, 2014. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1361.
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There has been an increase in interest among researchers in the study of loanword phonology, but only limited studies have been carried out on the phonology of English loanwords in Arabic. Thus, there is a need for more linguistic studies to shed light on the borrowing of English loanwords into Arabic. A significant issue that has been the subject of an ongoing debate is whether adaptation processes are part of perception or production. This study investigated the phonology of English loanwords in Arabic. In the process, it discussed the phonetic and phonemic approaches that have been controversial in loanword adaptation. The study questioned whether the absence of phonemes in the Arabic phonemic inventory equivalent to certain English target phonemes affected EFL and ESL learners' pronunciation of English loanwords differently. It also examined whether they substituted phonemes, and if so, whether the two groups of speakers used the same phonemes for substitution or used different ones. A list of 29 loanwords was compiled and used to examine the productions of 15 EFL learners from Salman University and 15 ESL learners from the Center for English as a Second Language in Southern Illinois University. Examining the effects of the Arabic Ll on the production of loanwords via transfer, approximation, the Markedness Differential Hypothesis, and Optimality Theory showed that these English loanwords had undergone certain phonological modifications. Both EFL and ESL learners reflected native Arabic phonological processes, while only ESL learners reflected universal patterns, such as VOT approximation, that followed neither the phonological system of Arabic nor that of English. Consequently, the findings of the study contribute to a better understanding of how both phonology and phonetics are related to English loanwords in Arabic. Further research is suggested to investigate different aspects of loanword phonology, such as the effects of orthography.
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Green, Antony D. "Phonology limited." Universität Potsdam, 2007. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2007/1551/.
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Phonology Limited is a study of the areas of phonology where the application of optimality theory (OT) has previously been problematic. Evidence from a wide variety of phenomena in a wide variety of languages is presented to show that interactions involving more than just faithfulness and markedness are best analyzed as involving language-specific morphological constraints rather than universal phonological constraints. OT has proved to be a highly insightful and successful theory of linguistics in general and phonology in particular, focusing as it does on surface forms and treating the relationship between inputs and outputs as a form of conflict resolution. Yet there have also been a number of serious problems with the approach that have led some detractors to argue that OT has failed as a theory of generative grammar. The most serious of these problems is opacity, defined as a state of affairs where the grammatical output of a given input appears to violate more constraints than an ungrammatical competitor. It is argued that these problems disappear once language-specific morphological constraints are allowed to play a significant role in analysis. Specifically, a number of processes of Tiberian Hebrew traditionally considered opaque are reexamined and shown to be straightforwardly transparent, but crucially involving morphological constraints on form, such as a constraint requiring certain morphological forms to end with a syllabic trochee, or a constraint requiring paradigm uniformity with regard to the occurrence of fricative allophones of stop phonemes.
Language-specific morphological constraints are also shown to play a role in allomorphy, where a lexeme is associated with more than one input; the constraint hierarchy then decides which input is grammatical in which context. For example, [ɨ]/[ə] and [u]/[ə] alternation found in some lexemes but not in others in Welsh is attributed to the presence of two inputs for the lexemes with the alternation. A novel analysis of the initial consonant mutations of the modern Celtic languages argues that mutated forms are separately listed inputs chosen in appropriate contexts by constraints on morphology and syntax, rather than being outputs that are phonologically unfaithful to their unmutated inputs.
Finally, static irregularities and lexical exceptions are examined and shown to be attributable to language-specific morphological constraints. In American English, the distribution of tense and lax vowels is predictable in several contexts; however, in some contexts, the distributions of tense [ɔ] vs. lax [a] and of tense [æ] vs. lax [æ] are not as expected. It is shown that clusters of output-output faithfulness constraints create a pattern to which words are attracted, which however violates general phonological considerations. New words that enter the language first obey the general phonological considerations before being attracted into the language-specific exceptional pattern.
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Lipscomb, David Robert. "Non-linear phonology and variation theory." Thesis, McGill University, 1989. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61817.
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McMahon, April M. S. "Constraining lexical phonology : evidence from English vowels." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.236336.
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Aloufi, Aliaa. "The phonology of English loanwords in UHA." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2017. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/67766/.
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This thesis investigates the phonology of loanword adaptation focusing on English loanwords in Urban Hijazi Arabic (UHA). It investigates the segmental adaptations of English consonants that are absent in UHA as well as the various phonological adaptations of illicit syllabic structures. It is based on dataset of around 100 English loanwords that were integrated into UHA that contain several illicit consonants and syllable structures in the donor language. This dataset is compiled from different published sources along with a data collection exercise. The first significant source is Abdul-Rahim (2011) a dictionary of loanwords into Arabic, while the other one is Jarrah's (2013) study of English loanwords into Madinah Hijazi Arabic (MHA) adopting the on-line adaptation. The third source is original pronunciation data collected from current UHA speakers. Furthermore, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was consulted for the etymology and transcription of the English words. The goal is to provide a thorough analysis of these phonological patterns whether consonantal or syllabic ones found in the adaptation of English loanwords into UHA. To accomplish this, the adaptations have been analysed according to two theoretical frameworks: the Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies Loanword Model (TCRSLM) proposed by Paradis and LaCharité (1997) and Optimality Theory (OT) introduced by Prince and Smolensky (1993). The different proposed analyses in this study facilitated an evaluation of the adequacy of each of these theories in accounting for the discussed phonological patterns found in UHA loan phonology. The thesis concludes that OT better explains the adaptations, but neither theory fully accounts for the variety of adaptations found in UHA.
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Suphi, Menekșe Sezin. "Non-linear analyses in English historical phonology." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/18646.
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Spaargaren, Magdalena Jeannette. "Change in obstruent laryngeal specifications in English : historical and theoretical phonology." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/4079.
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Two traditions have arisen from an ongoing debate concerning cross-linguistic laryngeal representations in series of obstruents. The first, ‘traditional’ approach assumes universally identical laryngeal representations: /p, t, k/ are unspecified and /b, d, g/ carry |voice|. The second, Laryngeal Realism (LR), assumes underlyingly different representations between languages: ‘aspiration languages’ have unspecified /b, d, g/, and /p, t, k/ specified for |spread|. ‘Voice languages’ have unspecified /p, t, k/, and /b, d, g/ specified for |voice|. In this thesis, I use historical data in order to determine which of these two traditions is correct. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis subject and places it in the broader context of representational models of theoretical phonology and general historical linguistics. In chapter 2, I discuss the discrepancy between traditional laryngeal features and their cross-linguistic implementation, the basis of the debate outlined above. The two traditions are then discussed in detail. It is shown that evidence for LR is drawn from surface facts in aspiration- and voice languages such as respective presence or absence of aspiration of /p, t, k/, respective absence or presence of voicing in /b, d, g/ and asymmetry in assimilation processes in favour of one of the features. Present-Day English (PDE) is best described in LR when these criteria are taken into account, e.g., [ph]in, [b 0]in, and invariable assimilation to ‘voicelessness’, e.g., cats /t+z/→[ts], sacked /k+d/→[kt]. In the following chapters, I present data from historical laryngeal modifications in English which have never been considered together in this respect before. In Chapter 3, I present new evidence that the laryngeal situation just described for Present-Day English dates back to the very beginning of its recorded history. This is shown in the fact that all laryngeal assimilation throughout the history of English is exclusively assimilation to ‘voicelessness’ or |spread| - as in pre-Old English [pd] > [pt] cepte ‘kept’, [td] > [tt] mette ‘met’, [kd] > [kt] iecte ‘increased’, [fd] > [ft] pyfte ‘puffed’, [sd] > [st] cyste ‘kissed’. LR can easily capture this asymmetry because |spread| is the only active member in the laryngeal opposition. |voice| is unspecified in English and can therefore never partake in phonological processes. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal with historical English data traditionally interpreted as ‘voicings’, i.e. addition of |voice|, and ‘devoicings’, i.e. loss of |voice|. Therefore, these data are potentially problematic for LR in that, according to this framework, |voice| is not specified in English. However, I show that LR can unproblematically deal with these phenomena as laryngeal lenition, removal of |spread|, and fortition, addition of |spread|. In fact, some of the lenition processes provide extra back up for LR. Processes in word-initial position, e.g., dialectal [v]ather, and final position, e.g., i[z], knowle[d3], are highly marked when viewed as ‘voicings’. However, when viewed as simple lenitions, as in LR, they are natural processes, which are predicted to be found in languages. Therefore, I show in this thesis that all available data from English historical laryngeal modification support LR, and that LR in its turn sheds an interesting new light on the data. It is superior to traditional accounts in that it can account for otherwise puzzling phenomena such as asymmetric assimilation and initial and final ‘voicings’.
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Barrios, Shannon L. "Similarity in L2 phonology." Thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3600018.
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Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty producing and perceiving non-native phonological contrasts. Even highly proficient bilinguals, who have been exposed to an L2 for long periods of time, struggle with difficult contrasts, such as /r/-/l/ for Japanese learners of English. To account for the relative ease or difficulty with which L2 learners perceive and acquire non-native contrasts, theories of (L2) speech perception often appeal to notions of similarity. But how is similarity best determined?
In this dissertation I explored the predictions of two theoretical approaches to similarity comparison in the second language, and asked: [1] How should L2 sound similarity be measured? [2] What is the nature of the representations that guide sound similarity? [3] To what extent can the influence of the native language be overcome?
In Chapter 2, I tested a `legos' (featural) approach to sound similarity. Given a distinctive feature analysis of Spanish and English vowels, I investigated the hypothesis that feature availability in the L1 grammar constrains which target language segments will be accurately perceived and acquired by L2 learners (Brown [1998], Brown [2000]). Our results suggest that second language acquisition of phonology is not limited by the phonological features used by the native language grammar, nor is the presence/use of a particular phonological feature in the native language grammar sufficient to trigger redeployment. I take these findings to imply that feature availability is neither a necessary, nor a sufficient condition to predict learning outcomes.
In Chapter 3, I extended a computational model proposed by Feldman et al. [2009] to nonnative speech perception, in order to investigate whether a sophisticated `rulers' (spatial) approach to sound similarity can better explain existing interlingual identification and discrimination data from Spanish monolinguals and advanced L1 Spanish late-learners of English, respectively. The model assumes that acoustic distributions of sounds control listeners' ability to discriminate a given contrast. I found that, while the model succeeded in emulating certain aspects of human behavior, the model at present is incomplete and would have to be extended in various ways to capture several aspects of nonnative and L2 speech perception.
In Chapter 4 I explored whether the phonological relatedness among sounds in the listeners native language impacts the perceived similarity of those sounds in the target language. Listeners were expected to be more sensitive to the contrast between sound pairs which are allophones of different phonemes than to sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Moreover, I hypothesized that L2 learners would experience difficulty perceiving and acquiring target language contrasts between sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Our results suggest that phonological relatedness may influence perceived similarity on some tasks, but does not seem to cause long-lasting perceptual difficulty in advanced L2 learners.
On the basis of those findings, I argue that existing models have not been adequately explicit about the nature of the representations and processes involved in similarity-based comparisons of L1 and L2 sounds. More generally, I describe what I see as a desirable target for an explanatorily adequate theory of cross-language influence in L2 phonology.
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Tin, Choi-yau Carmela. "Description of bilingual phonology in Cantonese-English preschoolers." Click to view the E-thesis via HKU Scholors Hub, 2005. http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B38279356.
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Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2005."A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, June 30, 2005." Also available in print.
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Strikis, Liena A. "The effects of orthography and phonology on vocabulary acquisition /." Connect to online version, 2006. http://ada.mtholyoke.edu/setr/websrc/pdfs/www/2006/179.pdf.
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Rollings, Andrew G. "The spelling patterns of English." Thesis, University of Essex, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.296167.
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McCully, Christopher B. "The phonology of English rhythm and metre, with special reference to Old English." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.257298.
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Podhovnik, Edith. "The phonology of Neath English : a socio-dialectological survey." Thesis, Swansea University, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.587852.
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The aim of this thesis is, first, to describe the phonetic and phonological features of Neath English, secondly, to discuss the possible effect of non-linguistic factors on people's choice of speech forms and, finally, to analyse the intonation of Neath English. Based on the data collected in fieldwork, the accent description gives the vowel and consonant phonemes and their realisations. Neath English, which is the English spoken in Neath, South Wales, is compared and contrasted to RP as well as other Southern Welsh English accents. To illustrate the similarities and differences to RP and Welsh, vowel and consonant typologies are given. Additionally, this thesis looks at how and to what extent the non-linguistic factors affect people in their choice of speech forms. A detailed computer analysis of the data gives insight into how age, male/female and education have influenced people's speech forms. Six groups of informants are compared to each other in order to discuss their different use of certain variables in their speech. In the description of Neath English intonation, the nuclear tones, the tones in heads and tails and the grammatical, attitudinal, and discourse functions of Neath English intonation are described. Neath English intonation is also compared to RP and other Southern Welsh English accents.
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Abd, Ghani Alias. "Variability in interlanguage phonology of Malaysian learners of English." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1995. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/429/.
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This study is a synchronic investigation of variability in interlanguage phonology of Malaysian learners of English. The study investigates patterns of style shifting in the speech performance of the Malaysian learners of English as they vary according to various stylistic environments i.e. verbal tasks viz, minimal pairs reading, word list reading, dialogue reading and free conversation representing different contexts of situation ranging from the most formal to the most casual form of speech styles. The main objective of this thesis is to establish patterns of style stratification in the speech production of the subjects and to trace whether there exists any systematic patterning in the subjects' pronunciation of the target English sounds of both the individual subjects and across the group of subjects who come from different ethnolinguistic backgrounds. This study is also undertaken in order to determine the extent to which Labovian 'attention to speech' may be used as a causal explanation for variability in the speech production of the subjects. This study is adapted from the variability model developed by William Labov (1970) and extended by Lorna Dickerson (1974) in her interlanguage investigation of Japanese learners of English for showing stylistic variation of speakers at a given point in time (synchronic variation) with the use of a single linear scale as a method of data analysis. An experimental investigation involving an interview method with the individual subjects, using four-part, Labov-style, self-administered tests were carried out at the University of Science, Malaysia. The results of this study showthat there is phonological variation in the subjects' performance of all the phonemes under investigation and this variation seems to be systematic in nature. The speech performance of the Malaysian subjects in this study is responsive to the nature of the verbal tasks they are engaged in and in their production of most of the target English phonemes they produced the predicted ranking of style shifting according to the Labovian 'attention to speech' hypothesis. According to the hypothesis the subjects' speech performance should record the highest index score in the task which requires the greatest attention to be paid to the speech (minimal pairs reading) with the lowest index score in the tasks which has the least attention (free conversation). As the results reveal, in most cases the subjects record the highest index scores in the reading of minimal pairs. This is followed by word list reading, then dialogue reading and finally free conversation which records the lowest index scores of all. However, the only exception to this regular patterning is in the subjects' performance of phonemes /v/ and in where it may be due to factors such as phonological transfer from Bahasa Malaysia (for phoneme Id) or inadequate data for comparison (for phoneme /v/ as well as phonemes /p/, /b/ and /g/ in free conversation) . The results of statistical analysis using a Repeated Measurement of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicate that there is significant difference in the performance of the subjects across the four verbal tasks with the reading of minimal pairs the highest in the rank, followed by word list reading then dialogue reading and finally free conversation, the lowest in the rank. The results of this study suggest that 'attention to speech' could be used to account for variability in the subjects' speech performance of most of the TL phonemes under investigation across the four different verbal tasks. However, it cannot adequately explain variability in the subjects' performance of the TL phoneme /r/. The results also suggest that though the subjects' speech performance is also sensitive to the position of phonemes in the words (i.e. word initial, medial or final), their production of those phonemes seems to be governed by the nature of the verbal tasks they are engaged in. As regards the group performance according to subjects' ethnolinguistic backgrounds, the results reveal that in most cases there is no significant difference in the performance of the subjects who come from different ethnolinguistic groups viz. Malay, Chinese and Indian. This is supported by statistical results which indicate no significant difference in the performance of the subjects according to groups with the exception of subjects performance of /0/ and /g/ where in their production of the target phoneme /0/, subjects who come from a Malay background records the highest mean scores followed by subjects who come from a Chinese background and finally those who come from an Indian background. As regards, phoneme /g/, the results suggest that subjects from a Chinese background record the lowest mean scores of all.
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Chow, Daryl. "The Intonational Structure of Singapore English." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/35302.
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This dissertation is a comprehensive description of the structure of the prosody of Singapore English. Using the Prosodic Hierarchy as a framework, each layer of the structure of Singapore English is described in detail. The smallest level described in this dissertation is the syllable, the domain in which the majority of segmental processes occur in Singapore English. The second level is the prosodic word domain, where there is a high tone anchored to the final syllable and a low tone anchored to the left edge, and these tones are shown in this dissertation to be recursive. These tones are independent of stress, which is argued to not exist in Singapore English. The third level is the intonational phrase, where the final syllable carries the boundary tone of the entire intonational phrase, affecting the tones of final particles. There is also a phrase-initial boost on the first prosodic word of the intonational phrase. Markedly absent is any intermediate phrase or domain between the word and intonational phrase, which is argued to not exist in this dissertation. The dissertation ends with a look at the possible origins of the prosody of Singapore English and a consideration of the prosodic systems which may have influenced its development.
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Watson, Kevin. "The phonetics and phonology of plosive lenition in Liverpool English." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.493258.
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Fujii, Ikuko. "Interlanguage phonology of Japanese speakers of English in South Wales." Thesis, Cardiff University, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.308134.
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Cardoso, Amanda Beth. "Dialectology, phonology, diachrony : Liverpool English realisations of PRICE and MOUTH." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/19526.
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Dialect emergence or new-dialect formation in intensive contact situations has been the subject of research for decades. Approaches to dialect emergence have led to a more solid understanding of the origins of specific phonological features. This line of research often approaches issues of new-dialect formation and phonological feature development within the confines of one linguistic subfield. However, new-dialect formation is a multifaceted phenomenon which results from a combination of dialectological, phonological and historical linguistic factors. The current thesis presents a comprehensive account of phonological feature development in new-dialect formation from a combined theoretical perspective by exploring historical and contemporary processes in the emergence of phonologically-conditioned variation in the price and mouth lexical sets in Liverpool English. This feature has been widely researched in other varieties of English and has previously been attributed to new-dialect formation. However, little is known about the patterns of price and mouth in Liverpool English. The current thesis relies on multiple methods of data collection (e.g. a combination of fieldwork and corpus data), various quantitative methods, and detailed acoustic analyses (e.g. formants and Euclidean distance in a two-dimensional formant space) to investigate the precise details and the processes involved in the emergence and development of price and mouth patterns in Liverpool English. Liverpool English is thought to have emerged during the 19th century as a result of extensive and prolonged immigration from the surrounding areas of Lancashire and Cheshire, and from Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. However, the specific timing, extent of immigration, and proportion of immigrant populations have not been investigated in detail. The current thesis provides the first in-depth analysis of historical census records in order to extend our knowledge of the populations in Liverpool at the time of new-dialect formation. The insights obtained from this analysis provide a more nuanced picture of the development of Liverpool English. They are essential for determining what dialects potentially contributed to dialect formation and the repertoire of price and mouth variants present at the time that these processes were developing. The analysis of historical census records is further augmented by using a combination of quantitative methods and historical corpora in order to gain a fuller understanding of the processes involved in the formation of these dialect features. The contemporary investigation of price and mouth in Liverpool English shows that these patterns are separate, but related, and that their phonological conditioning environments resemble those reported for cases of price and mouth variation in other varieties of English. I present a detailed overview of the phonetics and phonology of price and mouth variation in Liverpool English, looking at a wide range of conditioning environments. This investigation also reviews a range of different quantitative measurements useful for research on variation involving diphthongs. The origins of price and mouth phonological patterns in Liverpool English indicate that an approach combining different theoretical perspectives is required to adequately explain the development of these patterns. The current thesis suggests that price and mouth phonologically conditioned variation in Liverpool English initially resulted from variants of different dialects within the dialect contact situation. However, some features of the contemporary patterns developed following new-dialect formation as a by-product of phonetic and phonological properties of diphthong production in certain following environments. By approaching the development of these phonological features in Liverpool English from a combination of theoretical perspectives, the current thesis expands our understanding of emergent phonological features in new-dialect formation.
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Onken, Busaki. "Letter-sound relationship in modern British English: theoretical considerations and teaching implications for Zairean efl beginners." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/213424.
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Atechi, Samuel Ngwa. "The intelligibility of native and non-native English speech: A comparative analysis of Cameroon English and American and British English." Doctoral thesis, Universitätsbibliothek Chemnitz, 2004. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:swb:ch1-200400880.
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The purpose of this work is to measure the degree of intelligibility of native and non-native English speech as well as analyse the major sources of intelligibility failure when speakers of these varieties of English interact. British and American English (henceforth BrE and AmE) and Cameroon English (hereafter CamE) are used as a case study with focus on segmental and supra segmental features. The study was motivated by a number of concerns, several of which are more prominent: First, it was motivated by the trepidation scholars like Gimson (1965, 1980); Prator (1968); etc. nursed that the unprecedented spread of English across the globe and the emergence of non-native varieties would cause English to disintegrate into mutually unintelligible languages, in the way Romance languages devolved from their Latin ancestor. The second motivation was that previous researchers (Bansal 1969, Tiffen 1974) on intelligibility have often concentrated their efforts on the traditional approach, which sees intelligibility from a one-sided perspective. To them, the non-native varieties of English are deficient and not different varieties from the native varieties. They were seen as substandard, incorrect, and unintelligible and thus needed remediation at all costs. The native varieties were seen as prestigious, correct, intelligible and the sole norm that must be emulated by non-native English speakers. In this way any interaction between a native speaker and a non-native speaker should be characterised by the non-native speaker making all the efforts to be understood as well as to understand the native English-speaking partner. This explains in large part why these researchers concentrated on measuring the intelligibility of non-native speech to native speakers and never vice versa. It was as if it was treasonable to measure the intelligibility of native speech to non-native speakers. Even if some researchers managed to do this, the comments that followed such data still showed that the aim was not to test the intelligibility of native speakers but to find out how efficient the non-native speakers were in understanding the native speaker. Another aim could also be to reinforce the teaching of the native norm, which was seen as correct against non-native features, which were seen as incorrect, to measuring intelligibility. While accepting that these studies reflected the conventional wisdom of the time, this study aims to move the debate forward by looking at intelligibility from a two-sided perspective. It sees communication between speakers of different varieties as a game of give and take, where both participants tune in to make the process successful rather than one participant being obliged to make all the efforts because s/he speaks a new English variety. That explains why we are testing not only the intelligibility of non-native speakers to native speakers but also native speakers to non-native speakersGegenstand der vorgelegten Promotionsarbeit ist die Untersuchung der gegenseitigen Verständlichkeit von muttersprachlichem und nicht-muttersprachlichem Englisch. Im besonderen werden die Hauptquellen und Ursachen des Scheiterns von Verständlichkeit in einer empirischen Studie bestimmt, klassifiziert und analysiert. Die Untersuchung wird exemplarisch anhand des Kamerunischen Englisch einerseits und des Britischen und Amerikanischen Englisch anderseits vorgenommen. Motiviert ist diese Arbeit vor allem durch folgende Punkte. Erstens bedarf es der Auseinandersetzung mit den durch eine Reihe von Autoren geäußerten Befürchtungen (z.B. Gimson 1965, 1980 und Prator 1968), daß die Herausbildung und Entwicklung neuer Varianten des Englischen letztlich zu einer Auflösung des Englischen in gegenseitig nicht mehr verständliche Sprachen führt, ein Prozeß, wie er sich historisch bei der Entstehung der romanischen Sprachen aus dem Lateinischen vollzog. Derartige Befürchtungen werden genährt durch die bisher ohnegleichen fortschreitende Verbreitung des Englischen über den gesamten Globus. Hier ergibt sich die dringende Notwendigkeit vergleichender Studien zur gegenseitigen Verständlichkeit zwischen den bestehenden Varianten. Zweitens folgen die meisten zu diesem Thema vorliegenden Untersuchungen im wesentlichen einer traditionellen, überkommenen Grundperspektive: die nicht-muttersprachlichen Varianten des Englischen werden als abweichend bzw. sogar defizitär aus Sicht der muttersprachlichen betrachtet, nicht aber als eigenständige Sprachformen (z.B. Bansal 1969; Tiffen 1974). Dies führt nach Auffassung des Autors zu einer einseitigen Betrachtung und Bewertung. Im besonderen wird in der sprachlichen Interaktion bei einem solchen Zugang die Last zu verstehen und für den Kommunikationspartner verständlich zu sein einseitig dem nicht-muttersprachlichen Sprecher übertragen. Auf diesem Hintergrund untersuchen die vorliegenden Studien anderer Autoren primär die Verständlichkeit nicht-muttersprachlicher Sprachformen für den muttersprachlichen Sprecher, nicht jedoch die umgekehrte Konstellation. Wenn die umgekehrte Perspektive überhaupt berücksichtigt wird, so zeigen die Kommentare, daß nicht die Verständlichkeit muttersprachlicher Sprecher für den Nichtmuttersprachler eigentliches Ziel und Gegenstand der Untersuchung war, sondern vielmehr die Frage, wie effizient sich Nichtmuttersprachler beim Verstehen muttersprachlicher Äußerungen zeigten. Des weiteren stehen diese Studien oft im Kontext des Bestrebens, im institutionalisierten Spracherwerb die muttersprachlichen Normen gegen die nicht-muttersprachlichen Merkmale durchzusetzen, die als nicht korrekt angesehen werden. Diese Positionen, der zugrundeliegende Zugang und die einseitige Ausrichtung bedürfen einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung
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Akita, Mamiko. "The phonological development of adult Japanese learners of English : a longitudinal study of perception and production." Thesis, Durham University, 2001. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1599/.
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Ruzindana, Mathias. "An interlanguage study of vowel duration in the advanced Kinyarwanda speakers of English." Thesis, University of Reading, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.293443.
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Ng, E.-Ching. "The Phonology of Contact| Creole sound change in context." Thesis, Yale University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3663654.
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This dissertation identifies three previously unexplained typological asymmetries between creoles, other types of language contact, and `normal' sound change. (1) The merger gap deals with phoneme loss. French /y/ merges with /i/ in all creoles worldwide, whereas merger with /u/ is also well-attested in other forms of language contact. The rarity of /u/ reflexes in French creoles is unexplained, especially because they are well attested in French varieties spoken in West Africa. (2) The assimilation gap focuses on stress-conditioned vowel assimilation. In creoles the quality of the stressed vowel often spreads to unstressed vowels, e.g. English potato > Krio /&rgr;ϵ&rgr;&tgr;ϵ&tgr;ϵ/. Strikingly, we do not find the opposite in creoles, but it is well attested among non-creoles, e.g. German umlaut and Romance metaphony. (3) The epenthesis gap is about repairs of word-final consonants.These are often preserved in language contact by means of vowel insertion (epenthesis), e.g. English big > Sranan bigi, but in normal language transmission this sound change is said not to occur in word-final position.
These case studies make it possible to test various theories of sound change on new data, by relating language contact outcomes to the phonetics of non-native perception and L2 speech production. I also explore the implications of social interactions and historical developments unique to creolisation, with comparisons to other language contact situations.
Based on the typological gaps identified here, I propose that sociohistorical context, e.g. age of learner or nature of input, is critical in determining linguistic outcomes. Like phonetic variation, it can be biased in ways which produce asymmetries in sound change. Specifically, in language contact dominated by adult second language acquisition, we find transmission biases towards phonological rather than perceptual matching, overcompensation for perceptual weakness, and overgeneralisation of phrase-final prominence.
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Caravolas, Marketa. "The effect of linguistic input on children's phonological awareness : a cross-linguistic study." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60612.
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The subjects of the study were kindergarten and first grade speakers of Czech and English. The Czech language contains a considerably higher frequency and variety of complex syllabic onsets than English. Hence, it was hypothesized that if linguistic input affects children's phonological awareness development, Czech children should show higher levels of ability on the tasks. These differences were expected to appear in preliterate kindergarten children if linguistic input, more than literacy and/or general cognitive factors, impacts significantly on phonological awareness.The finding that preliterate Czech children were more advanced in the ability to manipulate complex syllable onsets suggests that oral language input has an important effect on developing phonological awareness skills. Furthermore, its effect appears to be independent of the effects of literacy.
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Isono, Toru. "Japanese learners' interlanguage phonology : with special reference to English vowels and plosives." Thesis, University of Essex, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.252268.
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Jones, Mark Jonathon. "The phonetics and phonology of definite article reduction in northern English dialects." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.615045.
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Walters, J. Roderick. "A study of the segmental and suprasegmental phonology of Rhondda Valleys English." Thesis, University of South Wales, 1999. https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/studentthesis/a-study-of-the-segmental-and-suprasegmental-phonology-of-rhondda-valleys-english(900ae2d6-237e-4ce5-82fb-a7c8c9a9c080).html.
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The research is a study of male working class pronunciation in the Rhondda, part of the 'Valleys' area of South East Wales. It encompasses both segmental and suprasegmental (prosodic) phonology. The segmental analysis is primarily auditory although it has some supporting acoustic detail. It examines the consonant and vowel systems of Rhondda Valleys English (RVE), with phonetic realizations and lexical incidence. Comparisons with British R.P. are made and similarities with neighbouring varieties of English (e.g. the West Country) and the Welsh Language are observed. The suprasegmental (prosodic) analysis is of spontaneous conversational data, and is auditory and instrumental. The phonology of RVE intonation is described mainly via a system of intonation phrases (IPs), accents, and terminal tones. IP tunes (overall contours) are observed to contain accent profiles whose pitch obtrusions to the stressed syllable are, in the majority of cases, downwards and whose initial pitch movement from the stressed syllable is rising in over 80% of final accents and final accents. A large majority of IP terminal tones in the data are ultimately rising. Aspects of length and rhythm are examined. Evidence is found of rhythmic organization, e.g. of alternation between strong and weak beats. Strongly accented syllables can be accompanied either by lengthening of the vowel, or by shortening of the vowel with lengthening of the succeeding consonant. Which of these two strategies is adopted by the speaker depends partly on the vowel and partly on how the speaker syllabifies the word. The final 'weak' syllable of an IP may be phonetically stronger (with greater duration, envelope amplitude and pitch prominence) than the accented penult. Several of the prosodic features of RVE are found to bear strong influence from the Welsh Language.
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Barras, William Simon. "Sociophonology of rhoticity and r-sandhi in East Lancashire English." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/5601.
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Most discussions of English phonology argue that rhoticity and r-sandhi are necessarily in complementary distribution, citing the diachronic path that led to the loss of rhoticity and the resulting synchronic r ~ Ø alternations in non-rhotic dialects. However, some accounts suggest that ‘it would not be surprising to discover cases of intrusive-r in rhotic dialects’ (Harris 1994, see also Carr 1999, Uffmann 2007). In order to investigate how non-rhoticity and r-sandhi could be transmitted by dialect contact, this thesis uses data from speakers in five communities in Greater Manchester and East Lancashire. The locations are equally spaced along a twenty-mile route from Prestwich (a suburb of Manchester, where speakers are non-rhotic) to Accrington (a post-industrial mill-town which is on an ‘island of rhoticity’ (Britain 2009)). I show that individual speakers have variable levels of both rhoticity and r-sandhi, which matches research on early New Zealand English (Hay & Sudbury 2005). Beyond this key fact, I discuss several other aspects of the relationship between r-sandhi and rhoticity, including the phonological and dialectological significance of the patterns in the data. First, linking-r and intrusive-r have different distributions in my data, despite the typical claim that they are synchronically the same process. This supports the idea that speakers are sensitive to a difference between words with and without an etymological r: I attribute this to the influence of orthography and to sociolinguistic salience of intrusive-r. Second, the nature of my sample population allows me to consider both change in apparent time and variation across geographical space. An apparent time comparison of the distribution of non-rhoticity and intrusive-r in the five Lancashire locations shows that these features are spreading by wave diffusion: they reach nearby locations before they reach locations further away. However, there is also a pattern of urban hierarchical diffusion in which the most isolated and rural location, Rossendale, lags behind Accrington in its loss of rhoticity. This is examined in the light of local patterns of travel for work and leisure, which suggest that although Accrington is further than Rossendale from the non-rhotic ‘sea’ of surrounding speakers, socially constructed space is more significant than Cartesian distance in determining the amount of linguistic contact between speakers from different locations. Third, I show that levels of rhoticity are increasing for some young speakers in Rossendale, which supports the hypothesis that a local linguistic feature can have a ‘last gasp’ under pressure from a competing non-local feature before its eventual loss. However, the same speakers are also adopting intrusive-r more quickly than speakers from neighbouring areas and this is significant: while earlier research has suggested that the presence of hyperdialectal non-etymological r (e.g. lager [laôg@~]) can be an indication of a loss of rhoticity in progress, the East Lancashire data show a different situation, where non-etymological r is for the most part restricted to sandhi contexts. This shows that rather than r-colouring becoming part of the realisation of certain vowels (e.g. sauce [sO:ôs]), intrusive-r is becoming adopted as a hiatus-filling strategy: a phonological process is being used by some rhotic speakers independently of the loss of contrasts (e.g. Leda ~ leader) which caused it to emerge in non-rhotic dialects. I discuss these results in terms of sociophonology, which I use to convey the idea that the phonological process of hiatus-filling r-sandhi can spread through dialect contact, with a mixed phonological system emerging as a result. Although the data suggest a correlation between the loss of rhoticity and the development of r-sandhi, the nature of the overlap means that a phonological model must allow for speakers to have both features, even if rhoticity is eventually lost completely. Hay & Sudbury (2005) argue that the gradual development of linking and intrusive-r leading to their convergence to a single synchronic phenomenon ‘is not a process that can be well described by any categorical, phonological grammar’. I show that the current situation in East Lancashire speech can be described by existing phonological models with underlying representations and associated surface forms. These existing models do not rule out a parallel distribution for rhoticity and intrusive-r, in which individual speakers can have both features. This thesis provides some new dialectological data for an under-researched area of North West England, a discussion of phonological means of accounting for patterns in these data, and a discussion of the influence of socio-cultural spatiality on linguistic behaviour.
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Quinio, Julie. "La phonologie des emprunts français non anglicisés en anglais." Thesis, Paris 4, 2009. http://www.theses.fr/2009PA040014/document.
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Ce travail porte sur la phonologie des emprunts français non-anglicisés, c’est-à-dire qui ne suivent pas toutes les règles de l’anglais et conservent des caractéristiques françaises. Dans la première partie, nous décrivons la méthodologie employée pour la sélection du corpus, ce qui nous amène à étudier la terminologie utilisée dans la linguistique de l’emprunt, et présentons la base de données qui servira à l’analyse de ces emprunts. Dans la seconde partie, nous supprimons de cette base de données initiale toutes les variantes anglicisées, ce qui donne lieu à de nombreuses discussions sur la phonologie de l’anglais. Enfin, la dernière partie présente l’analyse de la base de données finale, ne contenant que des variantes non-anglicisées. En partant de l’idée que ces emprunts imitent la prononciation française, nous montrons comment les phonèmes français sont adaptés en anglais, et de quelle manière les locuteurs anglophones signalent l’origine française d’un motThis study focuses on the phonology of non-anglicized French loanwords, i.e. those which do not follow all English rules and retain French characteristics. The first part describes the methodology used for the selection of the corpus, which brings about discussions on loanword terminology, and presents the database that will be used in the analysis of these loanwords. The second part is dedicated to the deletion of the anglicized variants remaining in the database, which brings about many discussions on English phonology. Finally, the last part presents the analysis of the final database, containing only non-anglicized variants. Starting with the idea that these loanwords imitate the French pronunciation, we show how French phonemes are adapted into English, and how English speakers indicate the French origin of a word
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King, Anne. "Old English ABCs : on the origins and development of the Old English orthographic system, and its relationship to Old English phonology." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/19902.
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In the opening Chapter of the thesis, various possible approaches to the reconstruction of Old English phonology are considered. Of the five types of approach normally employed, it is concluded that the limitations and drawbacks involved in using orthoepic, metrical, contact and comparative evidence, mean that only the fifth approach, that which makes use of the evidence of Old English spelling itself is direct and reliable enough to be used in the reconstruction of Old English phonology. An examination and critique of traditional approaches to the interpretation of Old English spelling data, as well as traditional means of presenting findings are then offered. The notion of a 'standard' Old English is questioned, in the context both of Old English spelling and of Old English dialects. In the light of the findings of these Chapters, a new approach to the interpretation of Old English spelling is offered. This is based on (1) a taxonomy which establishes, by examining spelling usage, the principles and procedures of the spelling system and (2) the external and linguistic circumstances surrounding the origins of Anglo-Saxon literacy and the Old English spelling system. For (2), details and results of direct and indirect language contact between Pre Old English, early Old Irish and Late Latin/Early Romance are given and discussed. The influences of the latter two languages on the spelling-sound correspondences chosen and established for the eventual writing-down of Old English is then investigated by means of the reconstruction of 7th century sound and spelling systems for both. After an examination of the methodology pertaining to the genesis of a spelling system, this Latin and Old Irish 'supply' is then compared with the 'demand' of the reconstructed Pre Old English sound system. Preliminary findings are presented, followed by a corpus of the earliest Old English spelling data, together with a detailed proposal on how these might best be analysed to gain information on the relative degrees of adoption and adaptation of the Roman-letter alphabet necessary for the writing-down of Old English, the relative degrees of influence exercised by Latin and Old Irish spelling traditions on Anglo-Saxon approaches to spelling, the Old English spelling system itself and Early Old English phonology.
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Yeung, Wai Han Gloria. "A study on the pronunciation of Hong Kong English : a variety of English." HKBU Institutional Repository, 1995. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/87.
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Al, Ahmari Saleha Hussain. "THE ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH VELAR NASAL /ŋ/ BY SAUDI SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH: ARE THERE DEVELOPMENTAL TRENDS?" OpenSIUC, 2014. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1444.
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This study aims to examine the developmental acquisition trends of English nasal /ŋ/ by Saudi learners of English. According to the previous literature, the velar nasal /ŋ/ presents significant difficulties for learners of English, especially for Arabic speakers. The literature indicates that their most serious problem lies in their tendency to insert a stop after the velar nasal, such as singing /sɪŋɪŋ/ pronounced as [sɪŋgɪŋg]. Accordingly, this study aims to examine this claim by studying Saudi learners of English as a second language to find the types of committed errors, and the effects of length of residence and language use in diminishing such tendencies. For this purpose, participants representing two ranges of length of residence in the US (LOR < 1 year and LOR >4 years) were recruited. The instruments included both a demographic questionnaire and a production task. A list of English words ending with the velar nasal preceded by different vowels was given. Data analysis made use of speech analyzer, descriptive statistics, frequency analyses, and an independent t-test to see if there are significant developmental trends in the acquisition of the target sound. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence in support of some of the most well-known theories in second language acquisition, namely, Contrastive Analysis hypothesis (Lado, 1957), Markedness Differential Hypothesis (Eckman, 1977), and Language Transfer Theory (Odlin, 1986; Gass & Selinker 1994). The absence of the marked velar nasal in coda position and the phonological rules of its use in the marked coda position caused many types of serious mispronunciations in Saudis' oral production of English words that end in such a segment. Resulting types of errors stem from the negative transfer of the allophonic environment of the velar nasal in Arabic language. Such transfer decreases as the length of residence and L2 use increase.
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Sumdangdej, Suthee. "Input and the acquisition of suprasegmental phonology in English by Thai school children." Thesis, Durham University, 2007. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2479/.
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This thesis discusses an experimental study whose aim was to find out whether English pronunciation teaching can be improved in Thai schools, where English has recently been introduced at the primary level. The main study was first underpinned by a baseline study conducted to confirm the low level of achievement in English phonology in Thailand. Data were collected from a relatively small cross-section of Thai English learners (34 in total) from three levels: beginning (primary school), intermediate (secondary school), and advanced (university, both English majors and non-English majors). The results from the baseline study helped guide the direction of the experimental study. Results revealed that all across-levels, Thai learners share similar problems in English pronunciation including 1) mispronouncing the clusters in English either in initial or final position; 2) not pronouncing the final sound of English words; and 3) misstressing disyllabic and multi-syllabic English words. These non- target pronunciations lead to undesirable unintelligibity (Kenworthy, 1978). The thesis next considers the reasons for such problems and the conclusion is that this is due to the variety of English Thai learners are exposed to, that is from Thai teachers whose accents deviate from native English speakers (see Young-Scholten, 1995).How pronunciation is dealt with in Thailand inspired the main study. The experiment exposed two groups of learners to two types of English language lessons presented on tape, with voices of English native speakers the same age as the Thai learners. One type of lesson involved only primary linguistic input, similar to how a language is naturally learned (through interaction with English native speakers) and the other added awareness raising to this. Both lessons minimized the use of Thai. The content of the lessons was based on English syllable structure and primary stress and included 60 English words from the Thai national curriculum. These lessons were implemented with two different groups of 23 and 27 Thai first year primary school learners not yet exposed to English. The idea of investigating young learners was based on the grounds that the introduction of English to Thai learners has recently shifted to primary school. As a control group, a class of 30 learners who were the same age and at the same class level was selected to represent those who were learning English in Thai school fashion. Each experimental group had a 20-25 minute lesson every day for four weeks with the experimenter after a pre-test was administered. A control group who were learning English from Thai teachers received five to ten minutes of additional general tuition a day. Production test results from an immediate post-test and a one-month delayed post-test indicated the experimental groups performed significantly better on English syllable structure and stress than the control group. The errors produced showed the experimental group learners were similar in development to how first language learners of English acquire their native language and also closer to approximating the target language when compared with the control group. The study showed that both types of lessons using recorded native speakers input for the development of English phonology seemed to work equally well with young Thai learners. This indicates that pronunciation teaching for Thai learners can straightforwardly be improved. The large-scale development of lessons is recommended where the primary source of language input is from recordings from native speakers similar to those implemented with the two experimental groups.
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Kim, Jeong Young. "L2 Korean phonology : the acquisition of stops by English- and Finnish-speaking adults." Thesis, Durham University, 2005. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2766/.
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The purpose of this thesis is to find the reason why attaining nativelike pronunciation is difficult in adult L2A. This thesis attempts to take a purely linguistic approach to find it by hypothising that the acquisition of segmental phonology is more than the physical matter of getting the articulators to move correctly and involves phonological rules and principles. The hypothesis was tested through the L2A of Korean stops, which was investigated in three parts; perception of stop segments in word-initial position, production of stop segments in word-initial position and production of stops involving phonological rules constrained by syntax (i.e. the tensification rule vs. the intervocalic voicing rule).Thirteen British English-speaking adults and fifteen Finnish-speaking adults participated in the experiment. The research subjects were divided into three different groups ('Inexperienced I'， 'Inexperienced n' and 'Experienced') according to the length of exposure to Korean. The subjects in the group of 'Inexperienced ľ were exposed to Korean for one year in their native countries, and the subjects in the group of 'Inexperienced 11' for two years in their native countries. The subjects in the group of 'Experienced' attended a Korean language course for one academic year at least in Korea. Firstly, as for perception of stop segments in word-initial position, both English- and Finnish-speaking learners performed better in discerning geminates from non- geminate segment in general. Especially, the two language groups of learners were native-like in discerning a geminate (AA) from a non-geminate of which the segment is different from the ones in the geminate (B). On the contrary, the Korean stops distinguished by the feature [sg] alone have appeared the most difficult for the L2 learners of Korean to acquire. The English- and Finnish-Speaking learners showed a similar pattern of difficulties in discerning Korean stops regarding the feature [sg]; however, differences between the two language groups were also found in the perception of word-initial Korean stops, which were caused by the absence or presence of geminate in the learners' L1. On the other hand, no progress was made by English- and Finnish-speaking learners in the acquisition of Korean stops in accordance with the length of exposure to Korean. Secondly, the production of word-initial stop segments appeared more successful than the perception of them. The difficulty in producing word-initial stops seemed to be caused by Korean-particular phonological representations rather than controlling the degree of VOT values. As for the developmental aspect, English- and Finnish-speaking learners showed the improvement in the segmental production task according to the length of exposure to Korean unlike in the segmental perception task. Thirdly, the English- and Finnish-speaking I earners performed equally poorly on the tensification rule despite the differences in their L1’s. One reason was that the learners in both language groups were not advanced enough to sense the interaction between the phonological rule and syntactic condition in the Korean grammar. Another reason was orthographic influence. Regardless of the two language groups' similarly poor results in performance on the tensification rule, it was presumed that only Finnish speakers would be able to acquire the Korean-specific rule with the supposition that positive L1 transfer might occur at the even advanced stages of learning. In the light of the findings, it was concluded that the hypothesis of this thesis was supported by results from the experiment. Observing that the L2 learners had far greater difficulty in their production of stops involved in the tensification rule constrained by syntax than in their production of word-initial stops, it is concluded that the difficulty of mastering L2 phonology is due to the complexity of phonological rules applying beyond the component of phonology or across phonological domains in the prosodie hierarchy, some of which provide a means for mapping the syntax to the phonology. Therefore, all the complex phonological rules and principles of a segment must be acquired for the target pronunciation.
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Ahn, Hyunkee. "Post-release phonatory processes in English and Korean : acoustic correlates and implications for Korean phonology /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Qin, Chuan. "The perception and production of English vowel contrasts by Vietnamese speakers." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2010. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/1207.
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Tse, Ping-ping, and 謝蘋蘋. "Homophone effects in Cantonese-English bilinguals." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2008. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B40203840.
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Banos, Smith Helen. "Phonological awareness, literacy and bilingualism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.343434.
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Donald, A. M. "Aspects of old English phonological and morphological structure : Towards a dependancy account, based on material from the Corpus Glossary." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.380422.
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Pascoe, Michelle. "Segmental phonology and Black South African English speakers : communicative success with standard dialect listeners." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26323.
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The study investigated the nature of the listener confusion which occurs when Black South African English (BSAE) speakers communicate a list of common English words to speakers of standard South African (StdSAE) English. BSAE and StdSAE subjects were grouped into 10 dyads. BSAE subjects read 120 monosyllabic English words to StdSAE subjects. Written data of StdSAE subjects were analysed to determine patterns of success and failure in the communication of single word items by BSAE subjects. Specific difficulties with vowels, dipthongs and consonants are discussed in terms of their effect on intelligibility. Findings are evaluated in the light of previous research, and in terms of Flege's Speech Learning Model (1987, 1991, 1995). It is suggested that all segmental features of BSAE relate to two distinct levels: a functional (meaning) level and an aesthetic level. This study focussed on the functional level, and aimed to describe the segmental features of BSAE speech which affect meaning. Such a distinction has particular relevance for speech and language therapists who need to have a clear rationale for their work with BSAE-speaking clients. Clinical implications specific to this emerging client group within South Africa are discussed.
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Kang, Sang Kyun. "The acquisition of English glides by native speakers of Korean." Diss., University of Iowa, 2014. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1471.
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The two glides w and j exist in both English and Korean. In English, these two glides form syllable-initial glide-vowel (GV) sequences with any of the following twelve vowels (i, ɪ, eɪ, ɛ, ʌ, ə, œ, u, ʊ, oʊ, ɔ, a). In Korean, assuming seven monophthongs (i, e, ə, ɨ, u, o, a), fourteen GV sequences are logically possible, but only nine occur; the following five GV sequences are absent: *ji, *jɨ, *wu, *wɨ, *wo. Researchers who have proposed phonological explanations for this gap unanimously point to the homorganicity between the two segments in these absent sequences. In English, however, homorganicity seems to be disregarded; five GV sequences--GV[HO] sequences--consist of homorganic segments: wu, ji, wʊ, jɪ, wo. This difference in phonotactics between the two languages constitutes the source of difficulty for Korean ESL learners in mastering the L2 glides and GV[HO] sequences.
In this study, I first provide detailed phonological and phonetic characterizations of glides. I review phonological representations of glides, as well as corresponding high vowels. Then, I perform a series of acoustic analyses of a set of production data collected from Korean and English monolingual speakers. The acoustic parameters under analysis include the first three formants (F1-F3) and the duration of the glide steady state and the glide-to-vowel transition. These analyses reveal that the F2 of English [w] is consistently lower than that of any of the twelve vowels, while the F2 of Korean [w] depends significantly on the quality of the following vowel. Also, English glides exhibit considerably longer steady state durations compared to Korean glides.
Next, I analyze the learners' production data, collected from twenty-two Korean ESL learners. The L2 data reveal that the learners resorted to a few major repair strategies for target GV[HO] sequences, while the vast majority of the non-homorganic GV sequences (GV[N-HO]) are produced target-appropriately. Among these repair strategies, 79% were glide deletion (wound → [und]/[ʔund]), 20% vowel shift (wound → [wənd]), and 1% glide shift (yip → [wɪp]). Interestingly, however, in their L2 glides, many of the learners showed a departure from monolingual Korean glides in the F2 of [w] and the duration of the steady state.
Lastly, an Optimality Theoretic account is proposed for the learners' L2 data. Under the assumption that GV[HO] sequences are marked relative to GV[N-HO] sequences (Kawasaki 1982), I argue that learning English GV[HO] sequences by Korean ESL learners involves constraint reranking, crucially, demotion of a set of markedness constraints below a set of competing faithfulness constraints.
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Ng, Shiu May Doris. "The system of diphthongs in the interlanguage phonology of young educated Hong Kong speakers of English." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2000. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/345.
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Gooden, Shelome A. "The phonology and phonetics of Jamaican Creole reduplication." Connect to this title online, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1070485686.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xxiv, 297 p. ; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-297).
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Phoon, Hooi San. "The Phonological Development of Malaysian English Speaking Chinese Children: A Normative Study." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Communication Disorders, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/4336.
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The lack of culturally appropriate norms for assessing the speech and language status of Malaysian children has been an ongoing issue in Malaysia. At present, there are no normative data against which to assess the phonological skills of Malaysian children. Malaysian Chinese children are usually bilingual or multilingual. They acquire English, Mandarin Chinese and Malay during their preschool years. English that is used in Malaysia is commonly recognized as Malaysian English (MalE). MalE has distinctive phonological characteristics that are different from those of so-called Standard English (SE). However, the variations of MalE may not be completely understood by many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in Malaysia, and this may lead to difficulty in differentiating speech differences resulting from MalE dialectal features and true speech disorders. As well as establishing speech norms for MalE speaking children, information is needed about the current assessment practices of the phonological development of MalE speaking children. Three studies were carried out for the present thesis.
The first study was designed to provide insight into Malaysian SLPs’ perspectives on the current use of articulation and phonology assessments in the country. It reports the results of a survey of 38 Malaysian SLPs in term of the types of articulation and phonological assessments currently used, SLPs’ perceptions about the adequacy and accuracy of current articulation and phonological assessment in meeting clinical needs, the experiences of SLPs in using current articulation and phonological assessments, as well as their perception of the need for further research in the areas of articulation and phonology. The findings indicated that informal articulation or phonological assessments were widely used. Only a minority of the respondents used standardized articulation or phonological assessments. The majority of the respondents felt that the lack of locally developed standardized tests and the utilization of informal assessments of articulation and phonology in their clinics did not provide accurate diagnoses or intervention plans. They felt that there was a need for collecting phonological developmental data and creating articulation and phonology assessments for Malaysian children.
The second study was designed to identify characteristics of the consonant and vowel inventories of MalE as well as phonetic realizations of speech sounds, by investigating the speech production of ten adult Chinese speakers of MalE. The participants were asked to read a list of 206 single words which contained all expected MalE consonants, consonant clusters and vowels. These speech sounds were sampled in several different words and in different syllable-word positions. This study goes beyond previous studies of MalE phonology by using a quantitative auditory phonetic analysis. The characteristics observed were first categorized according to their frequency of occurrence and then further grouped into categories based on the possible influences of British English or American English as well as local Malaysian languages (Mandarin Chinese and Malay) and dialects. The interference patterns within MalE resulting from the influence of local languages and Chinese dialects were also discussed. The phonological features of MalE which converged with developmental phonological processes in SE children were explored. An understanding of the phonological features and realizations of MalE speech sounds is important because this will help speech-language pathologists to differentiate dialectal phonological features exhibited by MalE speaking children from phonological differences and disorders.
The third study which was also the major study of this thesis was designed to provide valid and reliable normative data for the phonological development of MalE speaking Chinese children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. This study provided a description of the children’s phonological system in MalE in terms of i) age of acquisition of speech sounds, ii) speech sound accuracy and iii) phonological process use. 264 typically developing English speaking Malaysian Chinese children between the ages of 3 and 7 years were recruited to participate in this cross-sectional study. In a pilot study, eleven words were eliminated from the list used in the second study, leaving a list of 195 words which sampled consonants, consonant clusters and vowels in various syllable-word positions and phonotactic structures. The words were illustrated and presented colourfully in composite pictures to elicit a large and well-controlled single word speech sample. All the speech data gained were transcribed phonetically and analyzed quantitatively. The findings revealed that MalE children’s speech sound accuracy was underestimated when MalE dialectal features were not taken into consideration. MalE speaking children exhibited phonological acquisition patterns that were both similar and different to SE. The differences found were mainly due to the cross-linguistic effects of Mandarin Chinese and Malay which were acquired at the same time by MalE speaking children. The influence of Mandarin Chinese and Malay appeared to accelerate or delay the phonological acquisition of MalE based on phonetic similarity theory.
The findings of the present study highlight the need to consider MalE dialectal features in the phonological analysis of MalE speaking children. The differences in phonological acquisition of MalE and SE indicate that the norms of SE are not suitable to be used for MalE speaking children. This study will provide useful and locally appropriate normative developmental data on phonological acquisition for MalE speaking Chinese children. Speech-language pathologists in Malaysia will be able to use it as a guideline in assessing and treating clients with articulation and phonological disorders. In addition, these normative developmental data are a prerequisite to the eventual establishment of a phonological assessment tool specifically designed for MalE.
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Hill, Margaret Monica. "The role of phonology in English vocabulary learning by Chinese tertiary students in Hong Kong." Thesis, Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B20263521.
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洪盛琴 and Shing-kam Phoebe Hung. "The effect of phonological awareness training on the reading achievement of late English learners." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2008. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B40717161.
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O'Neill, Sarah Ollivia. "Sound correspondences in the English-Spanish bilingual lexicon." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6620.
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While it has been recognized that L2 word learning is facilitated for cognates (De Groot & Keijzer 2000), approaches to cognate acquisition have focused on the similarity of L1- L2 forms, overlooking regular patterns in differences between items. For example, English phone [dʒ] regularly corresponds to the Spanish phone [x]: agent [eɪdʒɛnt]- agente [axente], voyage [vɔɪədʒ]- viaje [bjaxe]. The current studies test whether L1 English, L2 Spanish learners acquire and utilize regular cognate sound correspondences. Experiment 1 compared accuracy for cognate forms that include or do not include regular correspondences. Subjects learned the English names of 20 monsters. Afterward, they saw each monster's image and heard its name in English, then recalled and produced the monster's (cognate) name in Spanish. Results revealed higher accuracy for items containing regular cognate correspondences. Subjects with higher proficiency showed greater differences in accuracy between regular and irregular items. In Experiment 2, subjects heard a novel word in either English or Spanish and invented a plausible cognate in the other language. Their modifications to the word forms were analyzed. Analyses revealed that subjects’ modifications were not random, but rather demonstrated convergence on dominant modification strategies. Higher proficiency correlated with greater convergence on dominant strategies. Together, these results demonstrate that L1 English, L2 Spanish learners have knowledge of regular cognate correspondences and can utilize correspondences to learn or invent new cognate forms. Furthermore, because this knowledge is acquired gradually by the L2 learner, cognate processing is not consistent across proficiency levels or between individual learners.
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Jennings, Patricia Joan. "A comparison of the phonological skills of late talking and normal toddlers." PDXScholar, 1990. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4082.
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In the present study, the speech of twenty-four normally speaking toddlers and twenty-eight late talking toddlers was analyzed with respect to the syllable structures produced during a speech sample. The groups were matched with regard to age, sex, and socio-economic status, all passed a hearing screening, and all scored at least 85 on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development.
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Campos, Dintrans Gonzalo Santiago. "Acquisition of morphosyntax in the adult second language: the phonology factor." Diss., University of Iowa, 2011. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2677.
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The goal of this dissertation is to examine the ubiquitous challenge that adult second language speakers have in producing functional morphology, even at advanced stages of acquisition. Specifically, this study examines how native speakers of Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese use past tense and number morphology in English. To this aim, two current competing hypotheses are tested: the Interpretability Hypothesis, which states that certain aspects of syntactic knowledge (uninterpretable features) cannot be acquired after a critical period, resulting in target-deviant use of functional morphology, and the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis, which claims that all aspects of syntax can be acquired, but that phonological transfer effects from the first language might be at the source of target-deviant use of functional morphology. Participants were selected according to a pre-established set of criteria in order to obtain similar linguistic profiles. Native speakers of American English also participated as controls. The experiments included proficiency tests, sentence completion tests and picture description tests.
Group and individual results were analyzed in order to determine the extent to which the Interpretability Hypothesis and the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis could account for the observed patterns. The results of the experiments in this study strongly suggest that phonological factors can account for some of the observed target-deviant use of functional morphology, supporting the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis. The results also suggest that ultimate acquisition of new uninterpretable features is possible, supporting the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis and not the Interpretability Hypothesis. The study also stresses the idea that although phonological transfer effects cannot account for all the problems observed in second language functional morphology, it is vital that phonological factors be taken into account.