Franzo Law

Production of French vowels by American-English learners of French: language experience, consonantal context, and the perception-production relationship.

Second-language (L2) speech perception studies have demonstrated effects of language background and consonantal context on categorization and discrimination of vowels. The present study examined the effects of language experience and consonantal context on the production of Parisian French (PF) vowels by American English (AE) learners of French. Native AE speakers repeated PF vowels /i-y-u-oe-a/ in bilabial /bVp/ and alveolar /dVt/ contexts embedded in the phrase /raCVCa/. Three AE groups participated: speakers without French experience (NoExp), speakers with formal French experience (ModExp), and speakers with formal-plus-immersion experience (HiExp). Production accuracy was assessed by native PF listeners judgments and by acoustic analysis. PF listeners identified L2 learners productions more accurately when the learners had extensive language experience, although /y-u-oe/ by even HiExp speakers were frequently misidentified. A consonantal context effect was evident, including /u/ produced by ModExp misidentified more often in alveolar context than in bilabial, and /y/ misidentified more often in bilabial than in alveolar context, suggesting cross-language transfer of coarticulatory rules. Overall, groups distinguished front rounded /y/ from /u/ in production, but often in a non-native manner, e.g., producing /y/ as /(j)u/. Examination of perceptual data from the same individuals revealed a modest, yet complex, perception-production link for L2 vowels.

Cross-language categorization of French and German vowels by naïve American listeners

American English (AE) speakers perceptual assimilation of 14 North German (NG) and 9 Parisian French (PF) vowels was examined in two studies using citation-form disyllables (study 1) and sentences with vowels surrounded by labial and alveolar consonants in multisyllabic nonsense words (study 2). Listeners categorized multiple tokens of each NG and PF vowel as most similar to selected AE vowels and rated their category goodness on a nine-point Likert scale. Front, rounded vowels were assimilated primarily to back AE vowels, despite their acoustic similarity to front AE vowels. In study 1, they were considered poorer exemplars of AE vowels than were NG and PF back, rounded vowels; in study 2, front and back, rounded vowels were perceived as similar to each other. Assimilation of some front, unrounded and back, rounded NG and PF vowels varied with language, speaking style, and consonantal context. Differences in perceived similarity often could not be predicted from context-specific cross-language spectral similarities. Results suggest that listeners can access context-specific, phonetic details when listening to citation-form materials, but assimilate non-native vowels on the basis of context-independent phonological equivalence categories when processing continuous speech. Results are interpreted within the Automatic Selective Perception model of speech perception.

Stronger Accent Following a Stroke: The Case of a Trilingual with Aphasia.

This study documents patterns of change in speech production in a multilingual with aphasia following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). EC, a right-handed Hebrew–English–French trilingual man, had a left fronto-temporo-parietal CVA, after which he reported that his (native) Hebrew accent became stronger in his (second language) English. Recordings of his pre- and post-CVA speech permitted an investigation of changes in his accent. In sentence- and segment-listening tasks, native American English listeners (nu2009=u200913 and 15, respectively) judged ECs pre- and post-CVA speech. ECs speech was perceived as more foreign-accented, slow, strained and hesitant, but not less intelligible, post-CVA. Acoustic analysis revealed less coarticulation and longer vowel- and word-durations post-CVA. This case extends knowledge about perceptual and acoustic changes in speech production in multilinguals following CVAs. It is suggested that ECs stronger accent post-CVA may have resulted from damage to the neuronal networks that led to impairment in his other language domains.

Production of Parisian French front rounded vowels by second‐language learners

This study examined the effects of language experience and consonantal context on the production of Parisian French (PF) vowels by American English (AE) learners of French. A repetition task was performed, involving French vowels /y‐œ‐i‐a‐u/ uttered by a native speaker of Parisian French (PF) in bilabial /bVp/ and alveolar /dVt/ contexts embedded in the nonsense word/phrase /raCVCa/. Three groups of native AE speakers participated: speakers without French experience (NoExp), speakers with formal French experience (ModExp), and speakers with formal and extensive immersion experience (HiExp). Production accuracy was assessed by native PF listeners judgments and by acoustic analysis. Native PF listeners identified second‐language (L2) learners productions more accurately as a function of speakers increased language experience, although /u/, /y/ and /œ/, even produced by the HiExp group, were frequently misidentified. A consonantal context effect was revealed, including /u/ being misidentified more often i...

Speeded discrimination of American vowels by experienced Russian learners of English

This study is part of a project examining how L2 learners whose native languages have small vowel inventories (Japanese, Russian, Spanish) perceive American English (AE) vowels. Experienced Russian (RU) L2 learners’ discrimination was evaluated in a speeded ABX task that included nil Experimental contrasts among adjacent height pairs and front/back pairs; four nonadjacent height pairs served as Controls. An earlier study of Japanese L2 learners indicated that AE contrasts with spectrum and duration differences (S+D) [i:/■, ae:/[g/], u:/■, ■:/■] were discriminated more rapidly, relative to Control contrasts [i:/[g/], ■/ae, u:/■, ■/■:], than were contrasts that differed only in spectral structure (S‐Only) [■/[g/], ■/■, [g/]/■, ae:/■:]. Since vowel duration is not contrastive in Russian, it was hypothesized that discrimination of S‐Only and S+D contrasts might be equally slow, relative to Controls, if RU listeners did not attend to duration differences. Preliminary findings confirm that reaction time (RT) d...

Temporal and spectral variability of vowels within and across languages with small vowel inventories: Russian, Japanese, and Spanish

Variability of vowels in three languages with small vowel inventories (Russian, Japanese, and Spanish) was explored. Three male speakers of each language produced vowels in two‐syllable nonsense words (VCa) in isolation and three‐syllable nonsense words (gaC1VC2a) embedded within carrier sentences in three contexts: bilabial stops in normal rate sentences and alveolar stops in both normal and rapid rate sentences. Dependent variables were syllable duration and formant frequency at syllable midpoint. Results showed very little variation across consonant and rate conditions in formants for /i/ in Russian and Japanese. Japanese short /u, o, a/ showed fronting (F2 increases) in alveolar context, which was more pronounced in rapid sentences. Fronting of Japanese long vowels was less pronounced. Japanese long/short vowel ratios varied with speaking style (isolation versus sentences) and speaking rate. All Russian vowels except /i/ were fronted in alveolar context, but showed little change in either spectrum or ...

Perception‐production relationship in French vowel learning in adulthood.

The present study examined the extent to which perceptual performance by American English (AE) individuals predicted their accuracy in producing second‐language (L2) Parisian French (PF) vowels. Three groups of AE participants (no, moderate, and extensive French‐language experience) participated in two perceptual tasks (categorial discrimination and perceptual assimilation), and a production (repetition) task involving PF /y‐œ‐i‐a‐u/ in bilabial /rabVpa/ and alveolar /radVta/ contexts within a phrase. Results from perception tasks correctly predicted overall production difficulties and effects of language experience and consonantal context in L2 production. Paralleling their perceptual patterns, front rounded vowel productions by AE participants were mislabeled more often as back rounded vowels than as front vowels by native‐French speakers. PF /œ/ was produced more accurately with greater L2 experience. Production accuracy of /y/ was also greater with extensive experience, a finding not expected based on...

Speeded discrimination of American vowels by experienced Japanese late L2 learners

This study is part of a larger project to examine online perception of American (AE) vowels by non‐native listeners from languages with small vowel inventories. A speeded ABX categorial discrimination task with disyllables /Vp■/ was used to examine Japanese L2 learners relative difficulties differentiating 8 AE vowels contrasted in 13 pairs: 6 adjacent height contrasts among front [i:/■, ■/[g/], [g/]/ae:] and back [u:/■, ■/■, ■/■:] vowels and 3 front/back pairs [■/■, [g/]/■, ae:/■:]; 4 nonadjacent height pairs [i:/[g/], ■/ae:, u:/■, ■/■:] served as controls. Reaction times for native AE listeners did not vary across the 13 contrasts, despite differences in psychoacoustic distance between vowel pairs, reflecting automatic processing of native contrasts. However, for Japanese listeners, performance on contrasts among psychoacoustically more similar [[g/], ae:, ■:, ■] yielded the slowest latencies, especially for front/back pairs that did not differ in duration. Height contrasts between high/mid‐high vowels...

Within‐ and across‐language spectral and temporal variability of vowels in different phonetic and prosodic contexts: Russian and Japanese

Contextual variability of vowels in three languages with large vowel inventories was examined previously. Here, variability of vowels in two languages with small inventories (Russian, Japanese) was explored. Vowels were produced by three female speakers of each language in four contexts: (Vba) disyllables and in 3‐syllable nonsense words (gaC1VC2a) embedded within carrier sentences; contexts included bilabial stops (bVp) in normal rate sentences and alveolar stops (dVt) in both normal and rapid rate sentences. Dependent variables were syllable durations and formant frequencies at syllable midpoint. Results showed very little variation across consonant and rate conditions in formants for /i/ in both languages. Japanese short /u, o, a/ showed fronting (F2 increases) in alveolar context relative to labial context (1.3‐2.0 Barks), which was more pronounced in rapid sentences. Fronting of Japanese long vowels was less pronounced (0.3 to 0.9 Barks). Japanese long/short vowel ratios varied with speaking style (syllables versus sentences) and speaking rate. All Russian vowels except /i/ were fronted in alveolar vs labial context (1.1‐3.1 Barks) but showed little change in either spectrum or duration with speaking rate. Comparisons of these patterns of variability with American English, French and German vowel results will be discussed.

Acoustical analysis of Canadian French word-final vowels in varying phonetic contexts

This study analyzed Canadian French (CF) vowels /i y ø e ɛ o u a/ in word-final position. Of particular interest was the stability of /e-ɛ/; although some dialects of French have merged /e-ɛ/ to /e/ in word-final context, this contrast is maintained in CF. The present study investigated the stability of this contrast in various preceding phonetic contexts and in lexical vs morphological contrasts. Results showed that the contrast was maintained by all four speakers, although to varying degrees.