Augustine Agwuele

The effect of emphatic stress on consonant vowel coarticulation

This study assessed the acoustic coarticulatory effects of phrasal accent on [V1.CV2] sequences, when separately applied to V1 or V2, surrounding the voiced stops [b], [d], and [g]. Three adult speakers each produced 360 tokens (six V1 contexts x ten V2 contexts x three stops x two emphasis conditions). Realizing that anticipatory coarticulation of V2 onto the intervocalic C can be influenced by prosodic effects, as well as by vowel context effects, a modified locus equation regression metric was used to isolate the effect of phrasal accent on consonantal F2 onsets, independently of prosodically induced vowel expansion effects. The analyses revealed two main emphasis-dependent effects: systematic differences in F2 onset values and the expected expansion of vowel space. By accounting for the confounding variable of stress-induced vowel space expansion, a small but consistent coarticulatory effect of emphatic stress on the consonant was uncovered in lingually produced stops, but absent in labial stops. Formant calculations based on tube models indicated similarly increased F2 onsets when stressed /d/ and /g/ were simulated with deeper occlusions resulting from more forceful closure movements during phrasal accented speech.

The Effect of Speaking Rate onConsonant Vowel Coarticulation

In 2007 Lindblom et al. introduced a methodological tool to disentangle consonant-vowel (CV) coarticulation attributable to emphatic stress apart from the vowel expansion effects known to accompany the prosodic overlay. After empirically accounting for the altered vowel positions, they reported small but consistent increases in F2 transition onsets in emphatically produced CVs that could not be attributed to vowel context influences, and that differed across stop place. At issue is whether the findings of these authors can be replicated, but in the opposite direction, for CVs produced at fast speaking rates. A modified locus equation regression metric was similarly used to account for rate-induced vowel reduction effects in predicting frequencies of F2 transition onsets in rapid speech. Six American-English speakers produced [V1.CV2] sequences embedded in a carrier sentence, at three speaking tempos: normal, fast, and fastest. Significant differences were found between ‘predicted’ and ‘observed’ F2 onsets across stops, with alveolars and velars showing greater decreases in F2 onsets during more rapid speech than labials. The complementary findings are discussed relative to a unified view of anticipatory coarticulation in CV production across a continuum of hyperarticulated spectral expansion to hypoarticulated spectral reduction.

A Duration-Dependent Account of coarticulation for Hyper- and Hypoarticulation

Previous studies investigating anticipatory coarticulation in emphatically stressed CV sequences and during fast speaking rates reported that three factors contributed to the overall extent of the documented coarticulation. These factors were: (1) vowel identity, (2) vowel space expansion (emphasis) or reduction (fast rate), and a hypothesized (3) ‘deeper’ and ‘shallower’ stop closure contact in emphatic and faster speech, respectively. The objective of the current research was to conceptually and quantitatively unify these two studies. This was accomplished by showing that the opposite changes to frequency onsets of F2 transitions due to emphatic and rapid speech systematically vary as a function of the durational changes in the stop closure interval. Specifically, the decrease in coarticulation in emphatic speech is characterized by increases in F2 onsets and longer stop closures (relative to a normal baseline); the increase in coarticulation due to rapid speech shows concomitant decreases in F2 onsets coinciding with shorter stop closure intervals. Vocal tract area function simulations corresponding to emphatic and reduced speech implicitly support ‘deeper’ and ‘shallower’ closure contacts as a third factor contributing to the overall extent of anticipatory CV coarticulation.

A duration‐dependent account of coarticulation for hyper‐ and hypoarticulation.

Hyperarticulated and hypoarticulated speech are accompanied by spectral expansion and spectral reduction of vowel nuclei, respectively. These shifts in F1/F2 vowel space directly affect degree of anticipatory coarticulation in consonant + vowel sequences apart from traditional vowel context effects. Examining the opposite conditions of emphatic stress [Lindblom et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 3802–3813 (2007)] and faster speaking rates (Agwuele et al., Phonetica, in press) it was shown that coarticulatory effects could be documented independently of the expected vowel expansion/reduction effects. A modified locus equation regression metric was used in both studies to isolate alterations in F2 transition onsets due to prosodic and speech rate conditions apart from vowel space shifts per se. The current study provides a unified empirical and theoretical account for the opposite coarticulatory effects by providing duration data as the common variable tying both studies together. Articulatory and acoustic si...

Intensification and Attenuation: Colonial Influences on an African Culture

It is often presumed that colonialism radically altered the cultures that were under it. The showcase of colonialism is the continent of Africa. In most other places, colonialism transitioned to settlements, for instance the United States and Canada. Focusing on Yoruba culture, I will argue that colonialism rapidly and radically intensified or attenuated existing practices rather than upended or even radically changed or transformed them. I will explore the notion that there is perhaps nothing in the way of life that was introduced into Yoruba culture that was not previously available to them or to which they did not have a predisposition, examining the comments of the people in newspapers from the national archive on social, religious, and political institutions as well as popular cultural dynamics involving interpersonal and group interactions.

Diachronic Study of Yoruba Hairstyles

To recapitulate, the method that I have adopted to analyze what I have been calling trivial data, in the visual perception of a person with either dreadlocks or cornrow, has been to make associations by aligning events and pointing to commonality in the narratives. This procedure defines the cultural in a way analogous to Latour’s conceptualization of the social, and it exemplifies it by taking a presumed assemblage within the Yoruba nation with equally assembled worldview to explore collective action. This approach suggests that an assembled mental program underlies the interpretation of physical appearance, which then ignites a studied response. My proposition is that the appearance of dreadlocks or cornrows excites an internalized and hidden perennial fear that, despite the facade of modernity, remains active. The goal is to show the collective mind-set that is at work by uncovering the traces it leaves, and by tying these traces to their root cause. Thus, this work is an assemblage of the cultural, indeed of the social, because it collects and connects commonalities to affirm a society of practice. Basically, what is being shown in this book is the performance of a people’s way of seeing the world, a way of rationalizing causality, and of making sense of events. It traces the various societal outputs from seemingly trivial, mundane, yet persistent, occurrences. Consequently, the sociocultural approach of this discourse is not a mere collection of factual, historical data, but an interpretation of data that allows statements about a people and their way of life. For the scholarly community, this implicates the process of the generation of knowledge with respect to that which we deem significant and meaningful. Going beyond offering statements on the core belief system of people, the discussion digs deeper to uncover why the people react in the way they do when they come in contact with a “deviant” hairstyle.

The Underpinning of the Yoruba View of Hairstyle

It is important to reiterate that the discussion of this book is mainly centered on the everyday lives of the Yoruba people. It is concerned with the way in which their views of a matured male Yoruba person with cornrows and dreadlocks hairstyles, though mere hairstyles, are revealed in casual interactions to be ominous. The Yoruba view of the hair is tied to their view of the head as particularly sacred, particularly deterministic of an individual’s earthly existence, and requiring particularly protections by all means.

The Yoruba Universe

It is easy to observe that neither an appeal to reason nor a rationalized factual exegesis will explain his reaction or dissuade the displayed customary response.

Trivial Behaviors as Valuable Data

I cannot now visualize myself without my dreadlocks. My hairstyle has become a significant defining feature of me, earning me in some quarters the name Rasta. At Shashamane, Ethiopia, and in Trinidad, I received Rastafarian greetings from practicing Rastafarians. On each occasion, I was embarrassed not knowing how to respond. In Ibadan, elderly women, who are neighbors and around my mother’s age, call me “Dada.” Younger people preferred “boda Dada” as term of address. Most, however, maintain their distance, mouthing onirun were (one with the hair of lunatics), ever ready to treat me as such; the others who for whatever reason are unable to avoid me never cease to ask, “Why is your hair like that?” This book is about the different and mostly contrary responses that my hairstyle has induced primarily among Yoruba people and relative to other people. These differences point to different politics and cultures of visual perception. A reviewer commenting on an initial discussion of my encounters with Yoruba people as a result of my hairstyles and their language use said it was based on “trivial and anecdotal evidence”; however, this description misses its mark. Those mundane words, actions, and feelings are offshoot of certain values.

Dynamics of Culture and Visual Profiling

According to Goodenough, “It is the forms of things that people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating and otherwise interpreting them.” This work has been primarily focused on the description and explanation of Yoruba thought processes, specifically focusing on their long-sustained core belief system and worldview, which prominently influence their perception of deviant hairstyles. In doing so, it has relied on the manifest behaviors from different contexts of interactions, suggesting connections between “trivial” displays and layered societal cosmology. The approach is based on the assumption that the entire cultural system of a society is best understood by studying symbols, especially their constitutive power, through which the system is not only structured but also motivated. Thus, the symbolism of (normative, as well as deviant) hairstyle is related to sociocultural structures, including, at its base, a cosmologically informed worldview, that is, a people’s view of the way things actually are, as well as their concepts of nature, self, society. Sign is anything that stands for something else; words, objects, and gestures are also signifying elements. The arbitrariness of the relationship between sign and what is signified ensures that the relationship receives peculiar interpretation across cultures. According to Peirce, there are three different types of non-exclusive signs: iconic signs resemble what is represented directly, indexical signs imply the signified and directly connect to other experiences, and symbolic signs offer an arbitrary relationship. Aye is reified in dreadlocks, whereas nefarious activities are indexed by dreadlocks. Yoruba males who wear these hairstyles violate social order, subvert gender roles, and transgress against established norms and mores. Thus, they are the very symbol of the diabolical, walking around in search of whom to destroy.