Jane Setter

State-of-the-art review article

This article is organised in five main sections. It begins by outlining the scope of pronunciation teaching and the role of pronunciation in our personal and social lives. The second section surveys the background to pronunciation teaching from its origins in the early twentieth century to the present day, and includes a discussion of pronunciation models and of the role of the first language (L1) in the acquisition of second language (L2) pronunciation. Then a third section explores recent research into a range of aspects involved in the process: the effects of L1 and L2 similarities and differences; the role of intelligibility, accent attitudes, identity and motivation; the part played by listening; and the place of pronunciation within discourse. This section concludes with a discussion of a number of controversies that have arisen from recent pronunciation research and of research into the potential for using computer-based technology in pronunciation teaching. The fourth section explores a range of socio-political issues that affect pronunciation teaching when the L2 is learnt as an international rather than a foreign language, and the fifth section moves on to consider the implications of all this for teaching.

Speech Rhythm in World Englishes: The Case of Hong Kong.

This study investigated syllable duration as a measure of speech rhythm in the English spoken by Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. A computer dataset of Hong Kong English speech data amounting to 4,404 syllables was used. Measurements of syllable duration were taken, investigated statistically, and then compared with measurements of 1,847 syllables from an existing corpus of British English speakers. It was found that, although some similarities existed, the Hong Kong English speakers showed smaller differences in the relative syllable duration of tonic, stressed, unstressed, and weakened syllables than the British English speakers. This result is discussed with regard to potential intelligibility problems, features of possible language transfer from Cantonese to English with respect to speech rhythm, and implications for language teaching professionals. considering nonnative patterns of English speech, two paths are generally pursued: segmentai and suprasegmental. This article focuses on the suprasegmental features of language. Speech rhythm is a suprasegmental aspect of pronunciation, those aspects which describe and address features larger than individual speech sounds. English speech rhythm in older native varieties like British and American English is often described as stress timed, which, in basic terms, means that the start of each stressed syllable is said to be equidistant in time from the start of the next stressed syllable. This kind of rhythm is in contrast to syllable-timed languages (e.g., French, Spanish, Cantonese), in which the start of each syllable is said to be equidistant in time from the start of the next. Instrumental studies have, in fact, shown that very little difference can be found between languages thought of as typically stress timed and typically syllable timed (Roach, 1982; Dauer, 1983), and, in fact, Cauldwell (2002) describes English as irrhythmical Whether these descriptions stand up under instrumental scrutiny, they do seem to have some psychological importance for speakers of the languages so described. English spoken with a syllable-timed rhythm

Affective prosody in children with Williams syndrome

The aim of the current study was to investigate expressive affect in children with Williams syndrome (WS) in comparison to typically developing children in an experimental task and in spontaneous speech. Fourteen children with WS, 14 typically developing children matched to the WS group for receptive language (LA) and 15 typically developing children matched to the WS groups for chronological age (CA) were recruited. Affect was investigated using an experimental Output Affect task from the Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems‐Child version (PEPS‐C) battery, and by measuring pitch range and vowel durations from a spontaneous speech task. The children were also rated for level of emotional involvement by phonetically naïve listeners. The WS group performed similarly to the LA and CA groups on the Output Affect task. With regard to vowel durations, the WS group was no different from the LA group; however both the WS and the LA groups were found to use significantly longer vowels than the CA group. The WS group differed significantly from both control groups on their range of pitch range and was perceived as being significantly more emotionally involved than the two control groups.

Prosodic abilities in Spanish and English children with Williams syndrome: A cross-linguistic study

The aim of this study was to compare the prosodic profiles of English- and Spanish-speaking children with Williams syndrome (WS), examining cross-linguistic differences. Two groups of children with WS, English and Spanish, of similar chronological and nonverbal mental age, were compared on performance in expressive and receptive prosodic tasks from the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech–Communication Battery in its English or Spanish version. Differences between the English and Spanish WS groups were found regarding the understanding of affect through prosodic means, using prosody to make words more prominent, and imitating different prosodic patterns. Such differences between the two WS groups on function prosody tasks mirrored the cross-linguistic differences already reported in typically developing children.

Conditions in which prosodic impairments occur

We welcome the lead article (Peppé, 2009) which raises important issues with regard to the definition of the term prosody, the characterization of prosodic impairments and issues of prosody intervention. We take this opportunity to focus on the issue of prosodic impairment in two developmental conditions: a population with speech and language impairment including those with SLI, and individuals with Williams syndrome. We review the literature on prosody in these two populations and we discuss the issue of what may be considered a prosodic impairment as opposed to a delay in the acquisition of prosodic abilities in these two conditions.

Artificial grammar learning in Williams syndrome and in typical development: the role of rules, familiarity and prosodic cues

Artificial grammar learning is an empirical paradigm that investigates basic pattern and structural processing in different populations. It can inform how higher cognitive functions, such as language use, take place. Our study used artificial grammar learning to assess how children with Williams syndrome (WS; n = 16) extract patterns in structured sequences of synthetic speech, how they compare to typically developing (TD) children (n = 60), and how prosodic cues affect learning. The TD group was divided into a group whose nonverbal abilities were within the range of the WS group, and a group whose chronological age was within the range of the WS group. TD children relied mainly on rule-based generalization when making judgments about sequence acceptability, whereas children with WS relied on familiarity with specific stimulus combinations. The TD participants whose nonverbal abilities were similar to the WS group showed less evidence of relying on grammaticality than TD participants whose chronological age was similar to the WS group. In absence of prosodic cues, the children with WS did not demonstrate evidence of learning. Results suggest that, in WS children, the transition to rule-based processing in language does not keep pace with TD children and may be an indication of differences in neurocognitive mechanisms.

Prosody in typical and atypical populations.

This special issue is a selection of papers presented at the workshop entitled ‘‘Prosody in typical and atypical populations’’ held at the University of Reading in September 2012. Although there seems to be quite a vibrant community of researchers working on prosody in typical as well as in clinical populations, when one looks closely at current publication records, this still seems to be an under-represented topic, and we hope that this special issue will contribute towards further promotion of this area of research. Prosody is a suprasegmental aspect of speech and it includes a number of different aspects, such as stress, intonation and speech rhythm. Both comprehension and production of prosody are extremely important for successful communication. Research into child language acquisition shows that infants are sensitive to prosodic cues before they are able to communicate verbally and that prosody may be a channel which helps with the acquisition of words and grammar. However, research has also reported a number of different prosodic deficits, either in paediatric or adult populations. Prosodic deficits often accompany other speech, language and communication deficits, as for example in children with autistic spectrum disorders, specific language impaired; however, sometimes clinical populations may present with relative strengths in prosodic processing (as it will be discussed by Gavaro & Salmons, this issue). Better understanding of the nature of the prosodic deficits associated with different populations is paramount towards creating management and therapy protocols which will address these deficits most effectively. Hence, this special issue will offer further elucidation of some of the prosody issues found in specific language impairment, agrammatic aphasia and Elderspeak (the prosody often adopted when speaking to elderly people). This is by no means an exhaustive coverage of the topic – and it certainly presents only a snapshot of prosodic issues in a few populations – but it does cover different European languages; we hope that this special issue will inspire and motivate further research and, in particular, ways of addressing the problems that the papers cover. The first three papers in the issue are concerned with the acquisition of different prosodic constraints which bear upon either word formation or grammatical inflection processes in children

English lexical stress, prominence and rhythm

English speech rhythm is closely associated with the patterns of lexical stress and prominence in a stream of speech. Older varieties of English (OVEs), such as British and American English, which usually operate as the model in English language teaching, are often described as ‘stress-timed’, meaning the time between stressed syllables is more or less equal, in comparison with ‘syllable-timed’ languages (e.g., French or Cantonese), for which the time between successive syllable onsets is more or less equal. The usefulness of this distinction, however, has been disputed; e.g., Cauldwell (2002) talks about ‘functional irrythmicality’ in English speech. Cutler (1984) explains that native speakers of English focus on stressed syllables when listening to a stream of speech as part of the decoding process; i.e., for native speakers, lexical stress and the rhythm of the incoming signal play an important part in perception. Couper-Kuhlen and colleagues (e.g., Auer, Couper-Kuhlen, & Muller, 1999) have shown that speech rhythm plays an important part in the coordination of turn-taking in conversation. Anderson-Hsieh and Venkatagiri (1994) argue that speakers’ intelligibility will be affected if they do not sufficiently weaken English unstressed syllables. Such research indicates that the differences in the lexical stress and/or speech rhythm patterns of learners of English, or speakers of New Varieties of English (NVEs) which are not ‘stress-timed’, could create difficulties in comprehension and cooperative interaction for native speakers of OVEs and also, plausibly, for other speakers of English if they are using similar strategies. However, whether the majority of speakers of English in the world have a speaker of an OVE as their target interlocutor is coming increasingly under question. This chapter gives an overview of English lexical stress, prominence and speech rhythm in OVEs, including theoretical approaches to their description, and includes suggestions for pedagogical approaches for the English language classroom.

Vowel development in children with Down and Williams syndromes

Down syndrome (DS) and Williams syndrome (WS) are genetic disorders resulting from different types of genetic errors. While both disorders lead to phonological and speech motor deficits, particularly little is known about vowel production in DS and WS. Recent work suggests that impaired vowel articulation in DS likely contributes to the poor intelligibility of DS speech. Developmental delays in temporal vowel structure and pitch control have been found in children with WS when compared to their chronological matches. Here, we analyze spontaneous speech samples produced by British children with DS and WI and compare them with typically developing children from the same geographic area in Southern England. We focus on the acquisition of fine-grained phonetic details, asking if children with DS and WS are able to synchronize the phonetic and indexical domains while coping with articulatory challenges related to their respective syndromes. Phonetic details pertaining to the spectral (vowel-inherent spectral c...