Joann Fokes

Linguistic analysis of children's conversational repairs

Conversational repairs used by children in Browns Stages III and V and by 5- to 6-year-olds were investigated. A linguistic analysis revealed that each group repaired their utterances when not understood but did so using different repair types. Individual preferences for using a specific repair type was observed, although preferences decreased with age.

Voice onset time: The development of Spanish/English distinction in normal and language disordered children

Voice onset time (VET) values for the six English and Spanish stops in word initial position were measured from items spoken by Spanish speaking children who learned English as a second language. The two younger children aged four and seven had progressed normally in language development while the ten year old had a delayed onset. Spectrographs of ten tokens of each of six words in English and in Spanish were analyzed. VOT values in both languages for the younger children were significantly different. A developmental trend was noted in that the seven year old had acquired the Spanish prevoiced stops while the four year old employed the short lag range. Both had acquired the short lag range for voiceless Spanish stops. The ten year old language delayed child, however, employed the VOT values of English for the Spanish voicing categories. From the results of this study, two conclusions were made. First, there is support for a developmental pattern of VOT durations. Secondly, a child who has a language disor...

Acquisition of the English Voicing Contrast By Arab Children

Children are typically more proficient than adults in learning the phonetic detail of a second language. The purpose of this study was to investigate the acquisition of the English voicing contrast as cued by voice onset time in syllable-initial position and preconsonantal vowel duration in final position in the speech of children whose native language is Arabic. The children, 24 to 135 months in age, were recorded producing minimal pairs differing in the voicing of consonants. Voice onset time and vowel duration were measured from spectrograms. Children were highly variable in their mastery of the voicing contrast. For this sample, neither age nor experience with English could predict phonetic proficiency.

Perception of English Voicing by Native and Nonnative Adults

Recordings of naturally produced stop-vowel English words with a wide range of voice onset time values were used to investigate nonnative perception of voicing categories. L2 learners of English from nine language groups and native American English speakers served as subjects. The responses of the language learners suggested that they were using a hybrid perceptual system, one in which the English voicing categories were not yet fully established.

Children's use of four semantic cases in two conditions

Abstract The production of agent + action + object + locative relations by 3;6- and 5;6-yr-old normal children and language-disordered children was investigated. These utterances were produced after children observed object manipulation or while copying object manipulation. The results indicated a developmental trend in the use of case relations. The manipulation task enhanced the use of case relations by the language-disordered group, whereas the observation task was more effective (or equally effective) for the normal groups.

The timing of English words by non‐native speakers

Difficulties with rhythm may be a major cause of lack of intelligibility or naturalness of non‐native speakers of English. Inappropriate timing of syllables contributes to the perceived rhythmic deficiencies of non‐native English. There is some evidence that non‐native speakers do not follow the system of the base work compressions which Lehiste (1972) reports for native English speakers. Preliminary data from Nelson (1982) indicates that native Indian speakers of English do not shorten base words when suffixes are added. The purpose of this study was to investigate the timing of base words and their derivations by non‐native speakers of English. The subjects were seven university students from four different language backgrounds, Thai, Malayasian, Japanese, and Yoruba. Subjects were recorded saying four base words in isolation and with three different monosyllabic suffixes and two disyllabic suffixes added. The durations of the base words and their suffixes were measured from duplex oscillograms. For all...

Native and nonnative perception of voicing in English

Naturally produced stop‐vowel syllables (pea/bee, pie/bye, tea/dee, tie/dye) were selected to represent various voice timing values from the prevoiced, unaspirated, and aspirated ranges. The set of tokens included some intended voiced and intended voiceless stops produced with the same voice onset timing (VOT) values within the range + / − 15 ms. Native and nonnative English speakers identified three repetitions of each syllable in random order for a total of 96 test items. As expected, American English listeners judged all values in excess of 40 ms. VOT as voiceless, and all other values as voiced. In almost all cases, nonnative listener responses were predictable on the basis of their native language. Since Chinese and Japanese contrast stops on the basis of aspiration, listener judgments were almost identical to the American. On the other hand, Malaysian listeners identified all voiceless and voiced stops as intended by the speakers; that is, listeners based voicing judgments on other properties of the...

Vowel duration in English word and sentence patterns as spoken by non‐native speakers

Non‐native speakers from five different language backgrounds (Chinese, Hausa, Japanese, Persian, and Spanish) and three native American English speakers produced tokens of two‐syllable words (complete), three‐syllable words (completion), and four‐syllable words (competition) in isolation and in sentence context. Vowel duration, a correlate of stress, was measured in the first two syllables in words from spectrograms. The Americans used very short vowels in the reduced syllables and shortened stressed vowels in suffixed words and in sentence context. The primary difficulties of the non‐native speakers were vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and the stress patterns of four‐syllable words.

Acquisition of the English voicing contrast by Arabic children

Children are typically more proficient than adults in learning the phonetic detail of a second language. The purpose of this study was to investigate the acquisition of the English voicing contrast as cued by voice onset time in syllable‐initial position comparing the performance of children whose native language is Arabic with that of American English speaking children and of adult speakers of Arabic learning English as a second language. Twelve children, 24 to 135 months in age, were recorded producing 11 minimal pairs differing in the voicing of the initial stop consonant, such as pea/bee and cab/gab. Voice onset time (VOT) was measured from spectrograms for labial, apical, and velar stops. Children were highly variable in their mastery of the voicing contrast; neither a childs age nor his experience with English could predict his phonetic proficiency.