Felix Schaeffler

Measuring language-specific phonetic settings

While it is well known that languages have different phonemes and phonologies, there is growing interest in the idea that languages may also differ in their ‘phonetic setting’. The term ‘phonetic setting’ refers to a tendency to make the vocal apparatus employ a language-specific habitual configuration. For example, languages may differ in their degree of lip-rounding, tension of the lips and tongue, jaw position, phonation types, pitch range and register. Such phonetic specifications may be particularly difficult for second language (L2) learners to acquire, yet be easily perceivable by first language (L1) listeners as inappropriate. Techniques that are able to capture whether and how an L2 learner’s pronunciation proficiency in their two languages relates to the respective phonetic settings in each language should prove useful for second language research. This article gives an overview of a selection of techniques that can be used to investigate phonetic settings at the articulatory level, such as flesh-point tracking, ultrasound tongue imaging and electropalatography (EPG), as well as a selection of acoustic measures such as measures of pitch range, long-term average spectra and formants.

An Autosegmental-Metrical Investigation of Intonation in People with Parkinson's Disease

Abstract This study investigates the intonation in the read speech of two males with hypokinetic dysarthria resulting from idiopathic Parkinsons disease and compares them with two age-matched male controls. The investigation was carried out within the autosegmental-metrical framework (AM), which analyzes intonational contours as a sequence of abstract, discrete pitch targets (high or low tones) and permits analysis on two levels: the intonational phonology and its phonetic realisation. Despite its potential for revealing patterns of disordered usage, the AM approach has seldom been deployed in the analysis of disordered speech, and has never been used to investigate the intonation patterns of people with Parkinsons disease. Results showed that there were no differences between the participants with parkinsonian dysarthria and the healthy controls in the inventory of pitch accents and boundary tones (i.e., the phonological elements of intonation). Both groups used the same range of pitch accent types and boundary tones. However, there were differences in the phonetic realization of them. In particular, the speakers with parkinsonian dysarthria on average produced shorter intermediate and intonational phrases, used fewer pitch accents per intonational phrase, and had a narrower pitch range. Furthermore, their boundary tones did not always coincide with syntactic boundaries. The finding of preserved categorical elements of intonation suggests that the abstract representations of intonation are unaffected in these participants with parkinsonian dysarthria. However, the findings of problems with the distribution and phonetic realization suggests that there may be a disruption in the instantiation of those abstract representations either at the initial planning level or at the level of phonetic implementation.

Individual differences in the discrimination of novel speech sounds: effects of sex, temporal processing, musical and cognitive abilities.

This study examined whether rapid temporal auditory processing, verbal working memory capacity, non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, musical ability and prior foreign language experience predicted how well native English speakers (N = 120) discriminated Norwegian tonal and vowel contrasts as well as a non-speech analogue of the tonal contrast and a native vowel contrast presented over noise. Results confirmed a male advantage for temporal and tonal processing, and also revealed that temporal processing was associated with both non-verbal intelligence and speech processing. In contrast, effects of musical ability on non-native speech-sound processing and of inhibitory control on vowel discrimination were not mediated by temporal processing. These results suggest that individual differences in non-native speech-sound processing are to some extent determined by temporal auditory processing ability, in which males perform better, but are also determined by a host of other abilities that are deployed flexibly depending on the characteristics of the target sounds.

Second Language Acquisition of Pitch Range in German Learners of English.

This study examines pitch range production in the read speech of female German second language (L2) learners of English of moderate to advanced proficiency. The study set out to identify to what extent the learners deviated from or adopted the language-appropriate pitch range values of the target language. Two potential ways in which the learners could deviate from or approximate the target were recognized: (a) by globally expanding their pitch range or (b) by adjusting their pitch range in a position-sensitive way that is linked to the phonetic realization patterns of underlying high and low tones at different points in intonation contours. Results showed that the L2 speakers produced pitch range values that were often language appropriate or approximated the target, although some deviations from the target were also identified. Deviations and target approximation were found to be position sensitive; that is, L2 learners were found to adjust their pitch range differently at the beginning as compared to later parts of intonational phrases.